Zak Brown slams McLaren’s ‘toxic’ politics under predecessor Ron Dennis before F1 turnaround
Zak Brown recalled the 'toxic' culture at McLaren under Ron Dennis before the former debuted with the team in 2016.
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Zak Brown and Ron Dennis (via IMAGO)
McLaren secured a massive turnaround in performance in the 2024 season and went from the middle of the grid to the very top. Zak Brown, who has led the team since 2016, played a major role in their success in recent years. Hence, the Briton opened up about the ‘toxic’ culture within Woking under Ron Dennis.
McLaren was facing severe performance issues from the Honda power units back when Zak Brown joined the team. Brown recalled that the team’s condition was much worse than he anticipated. Despite the positive-looking performances, the 53-year-old assured that the situation was very bad.
[It was] a lot worse than I thought. I came in knowing that things were not in great shape. You could see the brands on the car, you could see the results. But once I arrived, I realised it was really bad.
Zak Brown told McLaren F1.
Brown highlighted that he tackled the ‘commercial side’ of McLaren at first because of his expertise in that area. The Briton asserted that it took a lot of resources to fix that department of the team. Moreover, the 53-year-old also revealed that the condition of Woking was ‘toxic’ especially due to the politics under Ron Dennis.
I went about tackling the commercial side first because that’s where I was most comfortable, and we needed a lot of resources. It took it a while to turn it around, it was pretty toxic on the shop floor in terms of the politics.
Zak Brown added
Zak Brown rules out Honda’s power units as ‘exclusively’ the issue
Zak Brown recounted that the entire team was convinced that Honda’s power unit causing massive trouble to the team. While it was a major issue, Brown iterated that it wasn’t the only issue within the team. Woking then changed to Renault engines and could gain some performance improvement. The 53-year-old noted that the change was ‘daunting’ at first but the team powered through it in the end.
I think we were all convinced the problem was the [Honda] power unit, and while that was certainly a big contributor, that was not exclusively the issue. That became very clear once we changed [to Renault] and the results got a little bit better, but we knew we had fundamental problems. It was quite a daunting task to tackle, but we got there in the end.
Zak Brown noted
McLaren improved substantially in performance since then, courtesy of Brown’s leadership. The 2025 season looks even more promising for Woking as they will aim to continue their dominance in the constructors’ championship. Hence, the team will now hope to contend for both championships under improved circumstances.
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Aditya Pandya
(1515 Articles Published)