McLaren significant person Zak Brown
Ownership and management
After Bruce McLaren died in a testing accident in 1970, Teddy Mayer took over the team. In 1981, McLaren merged with Ron Dennis' Project Four Racing; Dennis took over as team principal and shortly after organised a buyout of the original McLaren shareholders to take full control of the team. Dennis offered Mansour Ojjeh the chance to purchase 50% of the team in 1983, with McLaren becoming a joint venture with Ojjeh's TAG Group. In 2000, after supplying engines to the team through its Mercedes subsidiary for 5 years, DaimlerChrysler (now Daimler AG) exercised an option to buy 40% of the TAG McLaren Group. Dennis and Ojjeh each retained a 30% share, and each sold half of their stake to the Mumtalakat Holding Company (the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Bahrain) in 2007. Although Daimler were reportedly considering acquiring the remaining 60% from Dennis and Ojjeh, they instead bought Brawn GP (renaming it Mercedes GP) in November 2009; their McLaren shares were sold back to Mumtalakat, Dennis, and Ojjeh in 2010.Dennis stepped down as both CEO and team principal of McLaren in 2009, handing both roles over to Martin Whitmarsh. However, following the uncompetitive 2013 season, Dennis retook the role in January 2014; Whitmarsh formally left the team later that year. Dennis sought to take a controlling interest in the company, but his relationship with Ojjeh had deteriorated, perhaps as early as 2013. In 2016, Dennis was forced out of his role as CEO by Ojjeh. He sold his remaining shares in the company the next year.After Dennis' 2014 return, he had abolished the position of team principal at McLaren, saying it was an 'outdated' position. Éric Boullier was instead named racing director in January 2014, becoming responsible for the F1 team. After Dennis' exit, Zak Brown was chosen for the post of Group executive director, with the positions of Group CEO and Racing CEO both being left vacant. While his position was formally within the wider McLaren Group, it was understood that his role would focus only on the F1 team. The increasing awareness of the mediocrity of the car prompted a reshuffle in 2018: Brown was appointed McLaren Racing CEO in April, and when Boullier resigned in July, his position was divided between Gil de Ferran as sporting director and Andrea Stella as performance director. In May 2019, Andreas Seidl was appointed as the new team principal. In December 2022, Seidl left McLaren to join Sauber as CEO with Stella promoted to team principal.Since 2004 the team has been based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England. Facilities there include a wind tunnel and a driving simulator which is said to be the most sophisticated in the sport. The team has also created the McLaren Young Driver Programme, which currently has one driver signed to it.Sponsorship, naming, and livery
McLaren's Formula One team was originally called Bruce McLaren Motor Racing, and for their first season ran white-and-green coloured cars, which came about as a result of a deal with the makers of the film Grand Prix. Between 1968 and 1971, the team used an orange design, which was also applied to cars competing in the Indianapolis 500 and Can-Am series, and was used as an interim testing livery in later years.In 1968, the Royal Automobile Club and the FIA relaxed the rules regarding commercial sponsorship of Formula One cars, and in 1972, the Yardley of London cosmetics company became McLaren's first title sponsor and the team raced as Yardley Team McLaren. As a result, the livery was changed to a predominantly white one to reflect the sponsor's colours. This changed in 1974, when Philip Morris joined as title sponsor through their Marlboro cigarette brand, whilst one car continued to run—ostensibly by a separate team—with Yardley livery for the year. Marlboro's red-and-white branding lasted until 1996, during which time the team went by various names incorporating the word "Marlboro", making it the then longest-running Formula One sponsorship (and still the longest title sponsorship, which has since been surpassed by Hugo Boss' sponsorship of the team, which ran from 1981 to 2014).In 1997, Philip Morris moved its Marlboro sponsorship to Ferrari and was replaced by Reemtsma's West cigarette branding, with the team entering under the name West McLaren Mercedes. As a result, McLaren adopted a silver and black livery. By mid-2005, a European Union directive banned tobacco advertising in sport, which forced McLaren to end its association with West. In 2006, the team competed without a title sponsor, entering under the name Team McLaren Mercedes. McLaren altered their livery to introduce red into the design, and changed the silver to chrome.
In 2007, McLaren signed a seven-year contract with telecommunications company Vodafone, and became known as Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. The arrangement was due to last until 2014, although the team announced at the 2013 Australian Grand Prix that their partnership would conclude at the end of the 2013 season. Despite explaining the decision to conclude the sponsorship as being a result of Vodafone's desire to reconsider its commercial opportunities, it was later reported that the decision to run the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix despite an ongoing civil uprising and protests against the race, and Vodafone's inability to remove their logos from the McLaren cars during the race as being a key factor in the decision to terminate the sponsorship. Diageo-owned whisky brand Johnnie Walker, an associate sponsor since 2005, offered to take over as title sponsor at the end of 2013, but their offer of £43 million was turned down by McLaren chairman Ron Dennis, who believed it to be "too small."At the end of 2015, it was announced that McLaren was due to lose sponsor TAG Heuer to Red Bull Racing. McLaren chief Ron Dennis later admitted to falling out with TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver. In 2015, McLaren was without a title sponsor and was set to lose a further £20 million in sponsorship in 2016. Between 2015 and 2017, the team competed as McLaren Honda due to their engine partnership with Honda. The team has competed as McLaren F1 Team since 2018. CEO Zak Brown has said that he will not be selling the name of the team to a title sponsor to keep the team's name intact and will be looking for major sponsors instead.McLaren's cars were originally named with the letter M followed by a number, sometimes also followed by a letter denoting the model. After the 1981 merger with Project Four, the cars were called "MP4/x", or since 2001 "MP4-x", where x is the generation of the chassis (e.g. MP4/1, MP4-22). "MP4" stood initially for "Marlboro Project 4", so that the full title of the cars (McLaren MP4/x) reflected not only the historical name of the team, but also the names of the team's major sponsor and its new component part. Since the change of title sponsor in 1997, "MP4" was said to stand for "McLaren Project 4". From 2017, following Ron Dennis' departure from the team, the naming scheme of the cars changed to "MCL" followed by a number. Since 2017, McLaren have increasingly adopted orange colours, designed to recall Bruce McLaren's liveries.
In 2019, British American Tobacco (BAT) agreed to a global partnership with McLaren under its "A Better Tomorrow" campaign to promote BAT's alternative smoking products Vuse (previously Vype) and Velo (previously Lyft). The agreement has enticed a similar controversy to the Mission Winnow sponsorship with Scuderia Ferrari due to the association with tobacco companies. In July 2020, McLaren announced a multi-year strategic partnership with long time sponsor Gulf Oil International, which includes Gulf Oil being the preferred lubricant supplier to McLaren Automotive and a special Gulf livery for the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix.In May 2022, OKX signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with McLaren as a primary partner. OKX and McLaren unveiled a cyberpunk inspired livery by enhancing the iconic Fluro Papaya colorway with flourishes of pink and a cyberpunk-inspired engine illustrations for the Singapore and Japanese Grands Prix. The deal was expanded in March 2023 with OKX becoming McLaren's official primary partner where OKX will receive increased branding presence on the car. The expanded deal also includes OKX supporting the McLaren Shadow esports team.As part of McLaren's 60th anniversary celebration, the team revealed a special livery for the 2023 Monaco and Spanish Grands Prix to celebrate their Triple Crown achievement. The Triple Crown livery is the amalgamation of the liveries of the three winning McLaren cars that forms the Triple Crown – the papaya of the M16C/D that won the 1974 Indianapolis 500 at the rear, the white of the MP4/2 that won the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix at the middle, and the black of the F1 GTR that won the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans at the front of the MCL60. McLaren's IndyCar Series sister team also raced their version of the Triple Crown livery for the 2023 Indianapolis 500, with the liveries of the Nos. 7, 6 and 5 painted as the M16C/D, MP4/2 and F1 GTR respectively. For the 2023 British Grand Prix, in conjunction with primary partner Google Chrome, McLaren will race a chrome livery in a throwback to the fan favourite livery from 2006 to 2014. The chrome livery was more commonly associated with the Vodafone McLaren years.