Kingsley Wheaton
Welcome to the smokeless word Christmas Special 2025 today, I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by none other than Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren, racing hot on the heels of doing what you might call the double double double constructious champions. And this year, constructions champions and Lando winning the Drivers Championship. Zak and I will dive into the team's electrifying journey this season, the bold changes and revitalization he's driven during his seven years at McLaren, and the leadership mindset behind their remarkable comeback. This is a conversation you won't want to miss. I hope you enjoy this festive, high octane episode. This podcast is intended for regulators, scientists, policymakers and investors. Only the views expressed in this podcast are the personal opinions of the speaker. Only any references to products having a reduced risk or reduced harm are based on the weight of evidence and assume no continued smoking. This material is not intended for us audiences. So Zak, welcome. What do you think of the studio? It's a new studio 

Zak Brown
I love. First of all, I like the temperature things being cold. It's like David Letterman used to keep things cold and it's cool. It brings back great memories, yeah, when we first got started, yep, Lando Carlos, yep, championship boys up there on the upper left,

Kingsley Wheaton
your book, obviously, talk a bit about that 25 already.

Zak Brown
So yeah, it's kind of all captured up there, including when we got started.

Kingsley Wheaton
And we wanted to make it a bit Christmassy as well, sort of McLaren X Christmas I think you must be tired. You've been doing the media round.

Zak Brown
But yeah, everyone's like, Hey, how was the party? I'm like, oh, what party I got on a plane at 2am out of Abu Dhabi, landed home, changed luggage, up to Edinburgh, which I've been working on, calling it Edinburgh, yeah, Edinburgh, yeah, because, yeah, I want to go Edinburgh. And then, because I did that last year, and I did that last year in Melbourne, but I called it Melbourne, and everyone started booing. I'm like, oh, what I do? And they're like, it's Melbourne. I was like, well, it's got an R in it. Get rid of the R, yeah. And so I was Edinburgh. That was the book. That was a book at a place called Usher Hall. It was packed. It was great. The fans were awesome.

Kingsley Wheaton
I How many people would be the couple 1000? Couple of 1000

Zak Brown
went and then we did one in London at the Apollo, which was cool. Yeah, so I'm having a lot of fun with it, because that it's like your hardcore fans, and none of the haters are prepared to pay money to come be mean. So it's like, Oh, good. This is safe audience. It's an audience that is very supportive, which is cool.

Kingsley Wheaton
And how a book sales, I saw you were bestseller on the sports list. Yep, yep.

Zak Brown
Going, going, well, it's a whole new thing for me, because I've never done it before, so I'm learning as I go. But it's, it's really cool.

Kingsley Wheaton
And I was going to ask you, I'll sort of, you know, you'd always wanted to write a book. Was it in

Zak Brown
me, I got approached, so it wasn't something that I pursued, and I thought that's kind of cool. And then I had kind of kept a list of so now's good. I can kind of forget about it, because it was documented things kind of growing up to where I am today. And so it was fun going through the process. I let the fur fly, you know, and then the lawyers and the comm team went, actually, we wouldn't keep the stories in, just maybe drop a couple of the names. And it's cool, because there's been some cool stuff over the years. And I was going to ask you, where do you find that? Where do you find the times that was the thing, if I knew what I knew now, I would have never done it right? Like it was one of these. Hey, I'd like to do a book and then you get into it, that's a lot of work and a lot of proofreading. And as you know, I didn't love school, so all of a sudden, start feeling like homework. When it was like, mark your own homework. This is a pain, so I'm not a procrastinator unless it's on things I don't want to do, and it's hard because you write it and then proofread chapter 17, proofread five, proofread 12. And so it goes out of sequence, and you start, kind of can't see the forest through the trees on like, is there a storyline here, or is it just chapters? But I think it turned out well.

Kingsley Wheaton
And how long sort of start, you know, from when you pen the first word to

Zak Brown
the six months and probably a good 30 hours, 40 hours, and then a big team helping I had to do all the content because I'm the only one who knows the content. So my team and did a great job was more about wordsmithing and typos. Lots of typos, because I can't spell nor use proper grammar half the time. But what they couldn't do was help me with the specifics. And I didn't want to get a date wrong, a name wrong, a year wrong. So that's and you kept going over and over and over again, but I'm happy with finished product.

Kingsley Wheaton
It's brilliant. And I was telling you, it's, it's, it's totally you, which is what I admired about it very well. Authentic talking about you, double constructors champion, Lando, world champion. I mean, how does it feel? I mean, you

Zak Brown
must tiring. I feel like I ran a marathon, and you have no idea the even in your own self, how much energy it takes. And then you, like, cross the finish line. Not that ever run a marathon, but you cross the finish line, and then you're just, you're done, yeah, you're out of petrol. And you, you kind of live off of adrenaline, get it into the end, and then soon as it's the checkered flag, comes out, yeah, you're done. And massive crash, just a total crash. So I'm it'll be a difficult week, because I've made commitments, and then all the media want to talk, and they kind of don't want to talk next week. They want to talk now, because it's a now story. So I'm going to power through it, but vacation is going to be nice, but it's not for a couple weeks.

Kingsley Wheaton
Well, I think if anyone can power through and how's the mood in Woking? I mean, amazing.

Zak Brown
I haven't been back since so after this, I'm gonna go back, great, see the team, and then we have a board meeting, and then then I gotta go to Paris tomorrow, and then we go to Tashkent, beautiful this time of the year.

Kingsley Wheaton
Yes, yes. It'd be a little chilly. It's a long way, by the way. By the way.

Zak Brown
Yeah. So we're gonna seven hours, yeah. So we're gonna fly drivers myself Andrea Thursday, overnight. Okay, do the awards on Friday. Get back Saturday, then we have a McLaren. So Sunday will be the first day I kind of sit and do

Kingsley Wheaton
nothing, rest and what? What's in Tashkent?

Zak Brown
That's the FIA award so star constructors trophy, and Lando is going to collect his driver's trophy. Fantastic.

Kingsley Wheaton
That'll be fun, absolutely. Well, do send my regards to everyone at the I will. And I'm glad it's gonna be cold there. I'm not a hot weather, very chilly, and it's a lot further than you think. I think it's further than Dubai when you fly there. Okay, so quickly, let me just take you back. Wheel of Fortune, yep. Two Cartier watches. Is that right? Yep, $3,050 right? Yep. Did you pawn them? Or is that

Zak Brown
ponderment in Van Nuys, which today they probably think they were stolen, because I got them when I was 13. They kind of just sat in my, my, my desk drawer, and then met Mario Andretti and 87 and I was in love with racing at that point. I said, How do you get started in racing? And he said, karting. And there happened to be an ad, a Jim Hall cart Racing School ad in the race program. And I thought, Well, my parents are never gonna approve of this, but I got these watches I can go. And I went into a van nuys pawn shop. And the rest is history. 

Kingsley Wheaton
How much was the first cart?

Zak Brown
Probably would have been about 12, 1300 bucks,

Kingsley Wheaton
wow. 

Zak Brown
And the rest was for petrol, petrol. And I used to wedge the cart in the back of a Volkswagen Jetta, Jetta. And you had to take the wheels off because it wouldn't and then tie it down, and kind of wedged it in there. And that was my first racing transporter.

Kingsley Wheaton
It's such a wonderful story, I never tie up that story. So on to what Formula Ford, Formula Three, eventually, I think the opal series, race

Zak Brown
against Max verstappens Dad. Yeah, Kevin magnuson's Dad. I never thought I was going to be that guy who went, I race against your dad. So I'm now officially old, officially old. I'm officially old. 

Kingsley Wheaton
This is a slightly blunt question. Was there a moment when you realized that you perhaps weren't quite good enough to realize your eventually?

Zak Brown
It took a while to get there. I lived in denial for a while. Other people figured it out before I did, because they would tell me, Hey, you should stop this racing stuff, because you're getting really good at sponsorship. So why don't you focus on that? And I didn't want to hear that, but eventually came to a conclusion they were right.

Kingsley Wheaton
Penny dropped. And I don't know how to ask this question. Let's say you and Lando could get in exactly the same car around, you know, a sort of, you know, f1 track. How much quicker would he be than you what are we talking Do you reckon

Zak Brown
depends what type of car? So I've done it with him. Yeah, if it's a Formula One car, yeah, eight seconds. Okay, okay, if it's a race car that we're both comfortable in, but isn't that level? Yeah, three to four.

Kingsley Wheaton
Okay, okay, so the marginal differences are still pretty small

Zak Brown
between in the big scheme of things, but the Formula One car, having driven them, the level of commitment and trust and understanding of the aerodynamics and the grip is insane. And I don't think I could mentally get my brain there, even though I know the car will do it, it's just going so fast. Yeah, where a car I'm more comfortable in that I would have raced? You know? I can kind of Yeah, I'm more comfortable there, but then his talent will still shine through, yeah, but I'll get him on a golf course.

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah, you'll get him on a go on a baseball field. I'm sure you owe me a round of golf. Actually, I'm ready for going. You said in your book, I love this quote. I think you said this. I hope you said it. It's good to dream, but don't be a dreamer. Yep, dreaming is great, but being a dreamer is bad. Yep. What's the essence of that?

Zak Brown
Dreamers are people that just think. The dream is going to come true. They don't. They're not prepared to put in the hard work. Don't understand the hard work, and just think it's kind of easy. So I've always dreamt. I've worked my butt off to do it. And then you meet some people that they come in, they have a dream, and then they're just kind of lazy about they think it's just going to come to him. You got to go get it. And lazy is not a quality. I'm a big fan of No, no, I've met very few successful lazy people.

Kingsley Wheaton
Doesn't tend to go hand in hand. A lot of hard work and perseverance, slight detour before we get on to our partnership, and we've talked a lot about it before, but the historical documents collection, I know this always struck me as an interesting sidebar. Yeah, is that a sort of, is that a sort of mental counterbalance to the fast paced world of f1

Zak Brown
I think it is it, you know, I don't know if it's the left side of the brain or the right to the front, to the back, wherever it sits, but it definitely is a different thing than my fast paced racing, full on adrenaline. And, you know, I missed school. And so these historical documents also fascinate me because they let me kind of look back in history, because they all have very interesting content, and then I want to know about the content. So I've always been very inquisitive in school. I wasn't inquisitive about school, but I've kind of come full circle. So, yeah, I think it's a different side of me.

Kingsley Wheaton
Any recent additions since we

Zak Brown
always collecting? I think the most recent is and, you know, some weird stuff. Pablo Escobar, okay, did a book for his family and friends. There's about 40 of them. He signed him of all the reports that were done on him, and like, cartoon caricatures. And it's almost like his own little autobiography. And I got that signed. So I've got everything from good guys to bad guys to everything in the in between, kings, queens, presidents,

Kingsley Wheaton
only one of each, though, I think, yeah, right, yeah, once you've got one, once I've got one, move on, you will trade up, won't you, if you

Zak Brown
will, if I find something that has more interesting content, then I'll trade up.

Kingsley Wheaton
Well, maybe one day someone will have, you know, the Zach Brown McLaren contract. Yeah.

Zak Brown
Well, good could be. Now, the problem is, everything's kind of digital, digital and Docusign. So, you know, back then, you know, I've got a King Henry the eighth, and it was written by his scribe and signed by him. And it's, you know, so it's also like sports collectibles. I like jerseys and all, yeah, yeah. Now, back then you got two jerseys for the year. So they're all worn now, because such a big business, players are wearing multiple jerseys in the same game, because it's a big business. So it's cooler when you can see the, you know, the blood, sweat and tears, yeah, on the memorabilia, versus today, where it's like almost mass produced.

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah, sure. All right, I'm going to take us back. It's almost seven years day there amazing. You said to me that I think your exact words were king. We're going to be World Champs in five years. That was not the impressive bit for me. The impressive bit was you outlined to me exactly how you're going to do that, and he and he said, what levers you were going to pull? So you just want to sort of go back over those, because, I mean, you were barring a year of covid, which no one can blame anyone for. You were as good as you I was so pretty, pretty close.

Zak Brown
You're pretty accurate. It was all about, you know, rebuilding the team, and needed to rebuild the commercial partnerships. And you were an early believer. Thank you, because we sucked when you took a leap of faith. You need to rebuild the commercial department to be able to go get the best drivers, the best technology. Help us market to fans. Help us rebuild our fan base, because everyone was kind of grumpy with us, from our fans to our partners, the few partners that we had, to our racing team itself, but we did have this iconic

Kingsley Wheaton
brand, the most social media followers, even then, yeah, yeah, we

Zak Brown
Yeah, they were just not necessarily sending nice things. So you were an early believer, and that was part of the process of rebuilding. So as we need to rebuild our our commercial partners, we need to then re engage with our fans and start giving them, treating them better, being more inclusive, more engaging, and being warmer. Hence the papaya. That was something that the fans wanted. So it was like, that's what our fans want. Let's give our fans what we want. Then, you know, get the best drivers in the car, get the new wind tunnel, the new CFD, rebuild trust in the McLaren brand with our with our partners and our employees, and at one. Once that all comes together, and everyone's rowing the same direction, it's amazing the power of a great culture, not just with your race team, but with your partner base and your fans. And you get this positive energy and momentum does amazing things.

Kingsley Wheaton
And you know, when you you know, I remember those 567, things, levers, as I call them. I mean, when you arrived in 2016 certainly by the time we met in it. I mean, how long did it take you to work this out? How long you know as you thought this through?

Zak Brown
It took me. I didn't know how bad it was until I got there, so I was a bit shocked, because I there was an arrogance that we had that it was all, you know, Honda's fault, you know, our engine provider, and certainly we had big issue on the power unit front. But that was far from our only issue. But there was an element of arrogance in the organization that it was like, well, we're we're great. It's just their problem, swap the engines out. Okay, we went from ninth to six, but sixth wasn't what any of that was with Renault. Renault for a while, yeah. So that wasn't that kind of went all right, that's nine to six, but, like, whose problem is it that you need to go from six to first? I was like, We got to own that. So I needed to get that out of the system. And it was a, it was in the system. So once we got that going and got the positive momentum going, so the results started to come, then you just reverse the momentum, and the snowball, yeah, gets gets bigger. And it's not been a straight journey to the front, because we then bump into covid. And then, of course, 2023, was a was a mess. And when I joined I knew I had to fix the problem, but I knew I hadn't created the problem. 2023 I created the problem.

Kingsley Wheaton
Well, I'm going to come on to, yeah, so I was in Jeddah, yeah, talk a bit about that before we get wasn't pretty, was it? Well, it wasn't, well, you know, I will come into that, because I suspect it was a turning point of sorts. I think you talk about maybe Andreas talks about poison biscuits. That's sort of a little bit what you meant about getting stuff out of the system. What poison biscuits mean?

Zak Brown
Negative negativity and a loser's mindset as opposed to a winner's mindset, right? So you have a bad day at the office on pit wall. Losers mindset is, you blame someone, and it's not your fault and you're angry. Winners mindset is, let's fix it. Let's fix it together. Let's let's rebound. And so I think a culture is really tested when things aren't going well, and as dominant season we had this year, we had some bad weekends and but you rely on the culture to to pick you up. So it's all about positivity. And you know, running towards problems, not running from problems, not blaming people, working together to fix being, trusting, transparent and no blame culture. Because also in our world, probably your world. When mistakes happen, you can kind of point to the person that last touched the ball. Usually it's a series of events that led to the failure. So getting your mindset around, you take a pit stop. You have a bad pit stop. You might go, it's, you know, the guy on the gun? Well, maybe the driver didn't stop where they did, maybe the gun failed. Well, whose fault is it? The gun failed? It wasn't me. And so it's not about whose fault it is. It's kind of dissecting what went wrong, and very rarely is it a single person. So instead of going, it's your fault because it was you. You're the last person to have touched it, just go, all right, we had a problem. And you learn from mistakes to make make them better. The only time I get grumpy about mistakes is when we've made the same one twice, because then you haven't learned

Kingsley Wheaton
that you haven't learned and very quickly, regulation. I do remember also the spend cap was an important thing, leveling the playing field. Massive adjacency with our business. How important was that in the journey?

Zak Brown
Critical for us, critical for the sport, critical for the fans, because, and you've seen this all happen since you've been partners with us. Williams, financial trouble sold we were in trouble. Sauber in trouble Force India out of administration, four teams right there. That's almost half the field like in big trouble. Now you have an 11 team that fight like mad to get in and write a check for four 50 million just to be able to have the right to do and that's what the cost caps done. Now the worst team in Formula One is a great team, Alpine, a threat to being q3 at any one time, where you will have known, because I know you've followed the sport for a long time, the worst team was three seconds off the pace, like the sport is so competitive and the cost cap has leveled the playing field now. You. You know, last year you had four teams. Almost half the field won. Seven drivers won multiple races. And though, even though this year the numbers seem like it would have been a boring season, I don't think a single race was no boring, right? We won 14 races. It doesn't no feel like we won 14 because each one we were sweating hard. There was a couple where we just walked away. But short of that, you know, I'd say out of the 14 races, we won, 11 were nail biters, absolutely and so ultimately, that's going to drive more fans. I I haven't yet seen the TV numbers coming out of Abu Dhabi, but I bet it's off the charts, you know, like 15 years since you had that three drivers going into a final race able to win, and think about how close it was, and milando finishes fourth. He's not world champions. I mean, it was, you know, the whole race was very intense, because any slip up. And, you know, we had Charles in our DRS the whole time we had the incident with Yuki, which was was over the line. And so it was not a boring finish to the year at all.

Kingsley Wheaton
It was not just, just in the interest of time. I just want to go back to that Jed race. Think you quali 17th and 19th or something right at the back. And again, you said to me, don't worry, we've got upgrades coming. I think it was Austria. Was Austria six races in, yep, and the whole season turn around. I mean, that felt to me like the big turnaround moment more than perhaps some things that happened prior to that.

Zak Brown
Yeah, I saw that coming in the middle of 22 you know, in 22 we had our challenges with Daniel Ricardo, and that was the headline. But actually, underneath that, I wasn't happy with the progress of the team and the car development, and we had big upgrades in France that year, and they didn't work. That can happen. I was, you know, I was disappointed, but not grumpy about that, because there's no guarantee. What I didn't like was the response of some of the leadership of the team, of kind of like, oh, well, we'll do better. Next time, it was like, no, no, this is a problem. And the reason for me it was a problem was it's that time of the year that you're developing the 23 car. So I thought, not only do we have a 22 problem, if I don't do something about this, we're gonna have a 23 problem. I was right, unfortunately. And so I made changes in the winter, promoted Andreas Stella, who's done an unbelievable job, and he went, we've got a problem. We told all our partners we were on the front foot, totally transparent. Announced it at the car launch. Here's our beautiful new car, by the way. It's gonna be really slow, which was painful, but you know, everyone was gonna figure it out at the first race, so we might as well pull the band aid off. But at the same time, Andrea did a wonderful job, and all of a sudden we saw that development curve in the wind tunnel and CFD skyrocketing. So I had to balance public perception and partners of the first six races, meanwhile, getting very excited what I knew was happening back at the factory, and uncharacteristically for Andrea, who's very kind of humbled and doesn't call a shot, started talking pretty confidently about Austria, which is really Andrea's first work. He inherited the car and started 23 Lando had a great race. We only had on the one car. We're always good in Austria, so you do kind of just Lando. But then we showed up to Silverstone the following weekend on both cars when qualified, I think was second and third or second and fourth, and finished second and fourth, and Lando led the race. And all of a sudden was like, wow. And from there, it's been just a rocket ship to two constructors, and the quickest turnaround in the history of Formula

Kingsley Wheaton
One was gonna say that that probably that cheddar to when you started improving was probably the biggest, yeah, you know, amazing improvement in the short

Zak Brown
time ever. But it shows it can be done, and we can do it, so can others. So we got to keep our foot on the throttle and not get complacent, because, you know, others can do it. It's kind of coming back to you can dream, but don't be a dreamer. You know, we dreamt, but we worked our butt off to make it happen.

Kingsley Wheaton
We'll talk more about that in a moment. Just want to go back to our partnership, and I'm aware of the time we have together. You know, probably partnerships weren't coming in thick and fast. Suddenly, you've got bat there. You've got all the tobacco legacy, you know, how did you think about and how did you how did you sort of get comfortable with with smokeless nicotine, you know, on the on the car, that must have been a big thing 100%

Zak Brown
so couple things. First, great history in motor racing, and BAT understands racing. So from a cultural point of view, it immediately felt you guys get me used to own a team. So, so, so there was a you understand our world and then understand the sensitivity that comes around with it. And from a commercial, we checked with our you know, what commercial partners, if we did have it at the time, and everyone was comfortable that the journey you. Were on, so we did lot of check in with shareholders. So we do, you know, same thing when we brought in, okay, X, you know crypto, that's, you know, we're, you know, Jack Daniels, right? You know, it's, it's for, for people over the age of 21 and we have fans under 20. So we're kind of comfortable understanding different industries, you guys clearly take the responsibility that comes along with it extremely seriously. So that was very important to us, that you know, we knew you were going to do the right thing, play by the rules. Driver age and you know, you sponsor the car, not the drivers. We understand the rules. You understand the challenges for us. Checked with everyone, and it's been an awesome run. Look at look at the partners that are surrounded, Google, Dell, MasterCard and and so the way it's been handled has been great. So we're very comfortable.

Kingsley Wheaton
I still remember that first race in Melbourne. I think we land those first race 151 races ago, if my maths is right, yep. I mean, what? What we didn't know then, that we know now, but it's been a fantastic ride. Do you think, I mean, we're transforming Zach? Do you think you know, is McLaren a transformation story? Is it a rejuvenation story? Is it both? 

Zak Brown
I think it's kind of all the above, right? Because we're, we're rebuilding this great, iconic brand. So we, we think about yesterday, but we're all about tomorrow, a better tomorrow, yeah, and so, and that's you see that come through in some of the liveries that we do that, you know, it's a nod to our past, but with a kind of a future look to it. And, you know, I think we've got this great, rich history, but we have a lot of new fans, so we need to kind of bridge the gap between talking to our, you know, petrol geeks like myself, but then also the new fans who maybe don't really know who Mika hacking in, or araton Santa, or some of our history. So to be able to story tell into the future gives us a lot of really cool content.

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah, favorite livery of the last five years I know, which is mine, not one of ours, actually.

Zak Brown
No, I think I'm such a center guy that I think, you know, first of all, they've all been really cool. They have been because they've been very different. Yes, you know, some of the other teams, you know, it's just kind of a tweak here and there where, you know, we've changed the car. So for me, Senna Monaco celebrating his life, not his death, but his life. And Senna was my favorite guy. That was really cool. Yeah. What was yours? The golf, golf, yeah. And that was kind of started. It started.

Kingsley Wheaton
That started. That was just mega,

Zak Brown
yeah, gorgeous car, historic brand in racing. It was gorgeous. And for

Kingsley Wheaton
some reason I got an early press shot sent to me, and it was a sort of shot of Lando walking down very casually with the third place trophy, and it's still my highest ever organic social media post. And I think it was a less, you know, go early and go with some of the authentic, yeah, yeah. And it was that great looking car. Oh, wonderful, beautiful car. Just before we get towards the very end, I love some of the things in your book. I'm not going to talk about more. Make the hard calls early, protect the team, not your ego. Margins matter, but one that I want, pressure is a privilege. I thought was interesting. You want to say a little bit about that, 

Zak Brown
yeah, so I'm a big baseball guy. Wouldn't we dream about sports? For those that that did, the dream was pressure, right? It wasn't, you know, you're going to win the World Series in four games, 10 nil. It's boring. The dream was, goes to game seven, the bottom of the ninth, you're down by three runs, bases loaded, two outs. Put me in Yeah, and you had a grand slam. That's the Yeah, you know, put it in racing terms, it wasn't that you won the Indy 500 by a lap. That's kind of boring. Yeah, it was you made a pass on the last corner against the best show. Embrace that pressure. I think the mega athletes in the world, whether they're individual or team, they thrive under the predator. They step up their game and the pressure. And so getting the team and everyone comfortable with use the pressure is a positive to raise your game. Don't be, don't be scared of it, you know, Tom Brady's, yeah, yeah. And if you're football, it was kicking the goal in overtime. And the World Cup, it wasn't, you know, we won five nil. And so take that pressure and use it as a way to step up.

Kingsley Wheaton
I think it's lovely. Pressure is a privilege. I really, really stuck with me. Quick. Fire around you. Ready? Fire away before we look forward. Okay, this is just some and ores. You can't choose both, okay, London or San Francisco, 

Zak Brown
London, London, 

Kingsley Wheaton
golf course or race track, 

Zak Brown
Race track. Well, I like my golf course. Race.

Kingsley Wheaton
White or beer, 

Zak Brown
I think I do red wine, yeah, 

Kingsley Wheaton
Monaco or Silverstone.

Zak Brown
Monaco, but Silverstone is a better race.  Sun or snow. Oh, snow all day long. 

Kingsley Wheaton
Okay? Time off or full on, 

Zak Brown
Full on,

Kingsley Wheaton
Yeah, I thought you might okay. This is not an Greatest of All Time F1 driver. Think you answered. Oh, Senna, no, no bread. Who would come? Who would come after that?

Zak Brown
Probably Schumacher, yeah, probably Schumacher. You got to put Lewis in there, yeah. And, you know, there's just put Max in there. You got to put Max in in there. But my second favorite, yep, would be Mario Andretti, yeah, of course. And you're quite good friends. Love Mario and I like the crossover guys. So Nigel, Mansell, Emerson, philippal, D Mario Andretti, both IndyCar and Formula One World Champions and that, you know, that's why I'm such an admirer of Fernando Alonso, yeah, when he was like, let's go to Indy not many people on the Formula One grid, if any, will be let's go dry. And I think him, after he signed up, he did the first couple laps. She was like, oh my, yeah, yeah. 230, miles an hour. It's It is insane, honey.

Kingsley Wheaton
You're gonna win that next year. That's the plan. That's the plan. Jolly good constructors title or driver's title. That's a bit unfair,

Zak Brown
that that's a tricky one, both, both? Is there a C, both? You could just

Kingsley Wheaton
say both, because you might as well revel in it. And then I think I know that half full or half empty?

Zak Brown
Oh, well, interesting. I'm kind of both. I'm optimistic, but I wake up with a like, assume the worst, so that it's like, being pessimistic, yeah, drives me, but I've got an optimistic it's all it's gonna work out, it's gonna be okay, but it's, it's a bit of fear based, yeah, that's right, that drives me to that. I read that in the book, that your fear of failure, I'm a fear of failure guy, not a excitement of victory. You know, like this weekend, yeah, I'm so happy we didn't lose, yeah? As opposed to, I'm so happy we won, kind of same result,

Kingsley Wheaton
but same result. But yeah, the drivers are, look, I'm I reckon we've got a minute left. So I'm going to wrap all this up in one final thing. Talk to me about 2026 what are the challenges? What do you want to achieve? How's the MCL 40? Is it shaping up? And have you got a message for the fans, the team, the shareholders and partners, shaping up?

Zak Brown
Good, clean sheet of paper. So that's a bit nerve wracking, right? So we don't really, kind of know. We have no data of a previous car. We haven't seen any competitors, so all we can do is run as fast as possible. We feel like we're running really fast, but until someone's running alongside us, I don't know if we're standing still or a lap ahead Barcelona will be more of a shakedown, because the rules are so radically different. I think Barcelona is going to be, does it all work? I think it won't be till the second Bahrain test, where people start really doing performance runs that you'll and we all hide and run different fuel loads. And, you know, it's a fun game there, where everyone will kind of speculate, but I think by the end of testing, you'll have a general sense, but I also think there's gonna be a huge development race. So what you see in Bahrain is not the finished product, it's the start. So it's gonna be a development race. So I think my message is mega exciting, right? Like New is just exciting. New races, new teams, new engine manufacturers, and then, you know, management of expectations. You know, there's no reason why we shouldn't be at the sharp end of the field, but there's also no guarantee. And you know what? If we're not, we'll just keep working hard. We're not, you know, we'll dream to fix it, but we're not gonna be dreamers. We're gonna be hard workers. So, you know, hang in there, because we've been here before. And we'll just, we'll just

Kingsley Wheaton
do it again. Let's go again. Zak, I just want to send a message back to everyone at McLaren, thank you so much for coming here. I know a busy My pleasure. It's been a wonderful conversation. You McLaren, the team, the drivers, the crew, everybody. They make us super proud. What you've achieved is legendary. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Lando and Sports Personality next Thursday, isn't it? I think, I think he's head up to second. He's against Rory, isn't it?

Zak Brown
So he and Rory. And Rory sent a very nice congratulations note, but now they're rivals.

Kingsley Wheaton
Please send our regards, our respect, our thanks, and thank you for joining me on the smokeless wood.

Zak Brown
I mean. My pleasure, and thank you for the great support. You've always been an awesome fan and supporter of ours. Thank you, Zach, you.

These transcripts are AI-generated and may contain errors or inaccuracies and should not be relied upon.