McLaren Boss Zak Brown Believes F1 Blueprint Can Lift INDYCAR Team

Zak Brown has built a Formula 1 team that has emerged as the team to beat in the world’s most prominent racing circuit.

Now, the McLaren Racing CEO is attempting to use the same blueprint to build his INDYCAR program into an organization that can have a similar stature to the McLaren Formula 1 program.

But at least one question remains: Is that blueprint applicable for a series that has more limitations when it comes to team control of body style and engines?

“One-hundred percent [the same] and it’s all people,” Brown said earlier this month. “It’s about having the right people, getting the right people on the bus.”

As Brown has found, it will take time. He’s brought people on the bus. He’s thrown them off (see former team principal Gavin Ward). 

He now has former driver Tony Kanaan running the program. Kanaan was quite popular during his driving days. He brought in driver Christian Lundgaard to replace Alexander Rossi, and Lundgaard has nine top-10 finishes and is fourth in the standings (Rossi had 11 top 10s last year and was 10th in the standings). And Nolan Siegel, in his first full season, has had the inconsistency one would expect of a rookie.

Brown recently added Kyle Moyer as competition director after Moyer was let go as part of the Team Penske technical violation issues over the last two seasons.

The team will also move into a new, bigger shop in January. This shop will increase the work space from their current 33,000 square feet to 86,000 square feet.

“[It’s] having the resources, the equipment, the technology, the driver,” Brown said. “So I feel like we have everything, but we’re young, and we can’t stretch our elbows because we’re not in a workshop that fits our goals and desires from an investment like in technology and things of that nature.

“We’re a big three-car team that’s in a small two-car shop. With that, we’ve got buildings all over the place where there’s storage units and paint shops, and that’s not an ideal environment to work in.”

With two wins this year, Pato O’Ward sits second in the standings. Lundgaard is fifth. Siegel — who missed a race with a concussion — is 21st.

Brown insists he’s not making a run at Will Power, the Penske veteran who is still unsigned for next year. There has been speculation that McLaren could be interested.

“I’ve heard everything you’ve heard,” Brown said. “I’ve got the same drivers next year.”

Driver stability has not been something Brown has enjoyed on his INDYCAR program. Going back a few years, he had Alex Palou signed before Palou decided he would stay at Ganassi. In the wake of that was McLaren’s $31 million lawsuit against Palou.

Palou has admitted a breach of contract and a trial is scheduled for late September and October to determine how much Palou owes McLaren.

David Malukas was signed by McLaren prior to the 2024 season but then a mountain biking accident resulted in a wrist injury and McLaren opted to release Malukas before he ever drove a race for the team. That resulted in a couple of reserve drivers until the team signed Siegel, who was running well in Indy NXT.

“I am happy we’ve kind of had a year or two of driver stability. That was extremely disruptive, even more so than I would have even thought,” Brown said. “It’s just what I spent all my time on.

“So it’s good that that’s kind of behind us. It’s not totally behind us, but it’s behind us from a distraction factor.”

Brown believes they are the best they have been and have room to grow. The team is the former Sam Schmidt-owned team that McLaren initially merged with more than five years ago.

“I feel like we’ve got everything we need,” Brown said. “Now we need to gel as a team, continue to drive the culture forward. I think where the team came from, it was like midfield mentality … [and] we now have the culture of the team and the mindset of anything kind of short of podiums and going for the win is kind of a disappointment.

“We’ve shifted from we’re kind of happy to be there and get the occasional good result to we’re here to win championships and Indy 500s. So you can see the team taking a step forward in their expectations of themselves, which is how a Penske and Ganassi and Andretti show up every weekend — with the intention of winning and anything kind of short of that is a bit disappointed.”

That doesn’t mean Brown looks at 2026 as the year his organization will be on top.

“Of course, we want to run for the championship next year,” Brown said. “But reality is, I think we’ll be stronger in ’27 than we are in ’26 because we’re only moving into the shop at the end of ’25.

“These new hires have just started, so I think ’26 is another year of gelling before I feel like ’27 will be it.”

Brown says that because he thinks they just need time.

“We’ve got drivers that can win the championship,” Brown said. “I think we’ve got equipment, technology, the level of sponsorship that you need. I think we’ve got everything, but it takes time.  No different in a relationship. You know someone for a week versus 10 years in. You can look at each other [and know].

“We just need a little bit of time to bring everything together, where the right foot knows what the left foot is doing, and they can get to a point where they can look at each other and communicate, versus having to communicate.”

One thing Brown got to experience for the first time came recently when he was in attendance for an O’Ward win at Toronto. It was the first time he was at a victory since McLaren took over the team.

“It’s the first one he’s ever been there in the flesh,” O’Ward said. “That was really cool.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.