McLaren won’t ‘eat the poison biscuit’

First it was explaining “papaya rules” and team orders prioritising one driver over the other. Now it is the intense scrutiny and the legality of the team’s rear wing.

With McLaren’s return to the top of the constructors’ championship, it has also unearthed new challenges for the Woking-based team.

Maintaining team harmony as it fights at the sharp end, and dealing with the mudslinging from rivals, is a new test for the team’s CEO Zak Brown.

Brown, along with team principal Andrea Stella, deserves huge credit for overseeing the team’s resurrection. Discussing the team’s journey back to the front in the Singapore Grand Prix paddock, he assesses whether the team has exceeded his expectations, given the wretched start to the season his team made in 2023 where both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished out of the points in the first two races.

“We’ve exceeded our timeline,” Brown clarifies. “I thought we would get to where we are now, or in this ballpark, but I could never be like ‘we are going to get to number one’ by next year.

“Why? Because the team has done a fantastic job, but the wind tunnel did not come online and by the time it did, this car was already done. People like Rob Marshall [had not yet joined from Red Bull].

The McLaren team celebrate the race win of Oscar Piastri, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

“Now, we are at 100%. Full strength. But we know the minute we back out of the throttle, you are back down to 95% so we have to maintain the momentum we have.

“We have a great team, so it is about not losing anyone and continuing to build where we can, so it is about making sure we don’t slow down.”

Brown came under pressure from the McLaren board to deliver results after a miserable 2022, as the team finished the season in fifth place. He says that pressure of fighting for his job is what spurs him on today.

“I’m still scarred, and hopefully permanently scarred, from the start of 2023,” he says.

“There’s two types of people in this world, those that are motivated by the thrill of victory and those that are motivated by the fear of defeat. I’m motivated by the fear of defeat, which gets me out of bed every day.

“It’s probably the unhealthier, yes, more stressful and probably explains why I had ulcers a year and a half ago!

“But I’m never relaxed, I’m never comfortable, and I think being uncomfortable is a good thing. Managing it is important but I don’t feel like I’m ever going to take my foot off the throttle, because if you pan out far enough you can see trouble ahead.”

Zak Brown, CEO, McLaren Racing, during the McLaren team celebrations

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

Brown makes it clear how he is trying to protect his team from being affected by the pressure that comes with being at the top.

Acting as a human sponge to absorb the scrutiny is one method – but by pointing out Red Bull’s current slump in performance, Brown feels McLaren must ensure it is also not responsible for its own downfall.

“Andrea’s got a great phrase,” he says. “‘Don’t eat the poison biscuit’. Everyone now is like ‘flexi wing this and that’ and I have to insulate the team to the best of my ability from the incoming [scrutiny].

“I know people are going to stir it and I have to protect the team, because if you look at one team in particular, where there’s lots of ‘poison’ and lots of [it] incoming, look what’s happening.

“That is an unbelievably great team that, at the moment, is going in the wrong direction because of culture.

“Their wind tunnel is not any different than what it was a year ago. I think that is a moral culture. People are leaving, [there is] lots of noise, look at the top, one team principal makes a statement, then Helmut [Marko] makes [another].

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“Drivers aren’t happy – driver’s dads…but it is same factory and with a huge budget. So like, what’s changed? The culture of the people.”

Sitting at the top of the table is a landmark achievement, but coupled with his fear of failure, Brown needs to ensure his team is not the architect of its own downfall by eating the ‘poison biscuit’.