Zak Brown explains how McLaren ended toxic blame culture

Zak Brown says McLaren’s transformation into a championship-winning team was driven by a no-blame culture and a major leadership reset

Zak Brown has opened up about the cultural overhaul required to transform McLaren from an underperforming outfit into the constructors' champion.

When Brown first took the reins at the Woking outfit, the team was in a competitive slump. Beyond on-track performance issues, the team had developed a blame culture the American was eager to remove.

Speaking to Will Buxton on the Up To Speed podcast, the McLaren Racing CEO explained how he worked on dismantling the toxic culture.

He credited team principal Andrea Stella and a revised technical leadership structure for the turnaround.

"People and leadership, and I'm talking about my leadership, not Zak's, but my leadership team led by Andrea Stella on the performance of the racing team," he explained when asked how he transformed the team and culture.

"I changed a few people, three of the top leaders, but let's say we've got a thousand people in the Formula 1 team. I changed three, but the 997 that gave us the car that was arguably the slowest car at the start of the year, are the same 997 people that gave us a world championship car.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Andrea Stella, McLaren, Zak Brown, McLaren

Photo by: Erik Junius

"The leadership that the whole team has provided has gotten everyone rowing in the same direction, working together. We're constantly trying to outperform each other, and we've created this awesome performance culture.

"It's a no-blame culture. So when we have a problem, which we do, we tackle the problem, not the people. So it's a safe environment. We work together. And when I joined, people were blaming each other. It was like, 'Look, it's one car. So you might think you're great on the front end of the car, and it's the person's fault at the back end of the car, but it's one racing car. So, can we learn how to work together?'

"And it's been an amazing quest, as we call it. A journey is coming into the office every day; a quest is flying to the moon. It's a much bigger challenge. And so that's the term we like to use."