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Dear McLaren fans,

Back in 1998, when this team was celebrating its last Constructors’ Championship, it would have seemed inconceivable that McLaren would go 26 years without winning this title. But that’s what is so special about our sport: the ups and downs, the subplots, the winning streaks, the trophy droughts, and the comebacks.

Lando said ahead of the weekend that the tough times make the good ones cooler, and I couldn’t help but agree with him – although it might have been a simpler job to have joined a winning team!

Winning the Constructors’ Championship is a dream come true for every single person associated with McLaren. Like myself, they will all, at some stage, have been captivated by the thrill of Formula 1 and dreamt of being involved in a moment of history like this. It’s a massive achievement, and fitting that this year is the 50th anniversary of our first Constructors’ Championship win in 1974. This is our sport’s ultimate prize. It’s why we go racing: we want to win titles, not just to compete.

When Bruce McLaren founded this team, he’d have had the highest ambitions. Yet, I don’t imagine even he would have anticipated this level of sustained success through six decades of racing across multiple series. And for that to have continued after his all-too-early passing shows the power of what he created and the resilience of the team he brought together.

There are people who have been part of this team for 30 to 40 years, who worked with members of Bruce’s original team, and who have helped to pass down his mentality, ensuring the same ethos runs through McLaren today. If you walk through the doors at McLaren as an employee or a representative of this brand, it’s because we believe you possess those same characteristics. This wouldn’t have been possible without that.

No one should underestimate the scale of this achievement. It’s taken us 26 years to get back to this point, and so much has changed in that time. Our sport is unrecognisable and continually evolving, but this finally puts us on par with Williams, another giant of F1, as the Constructor to have won the second-highest number of titles, behind our rivals from this season, Ferrari.

 

WE'VE DONE IT! 2024 CONSTRUCTORS' CHAMPIONS!!!

What an incredible TEAM achievement!

This one's for Mansour.
This one’s for Gil.
And this one is for everyone that has supported us. Our great partners, our awesome team members and their families, and the millions of amazing… pic.twitter.com/7fT1B3wdST

— Zak Brown (@ZBrownCEO) December 8, 2024

As a racing team, you’re always focused on what’s next – the next session, the next race, the next season, and very rarely take the time to stop and celebrate your achievements, but it is imperative that we pause for just a second to recognise the unbelievable work that those at McLaren have put into this. Some people have referred to this as the biggest comeback in the history of Formula 1. I’ll leave that for others to debate, but I will say that I don’t think anyone in their right mind would have predicted us to win the Championship less than two years on from our start to 2023, when we were the ninth, maybe even 10th, fastest team on the grid. Even if you take the Constructors’ Championship out of the equation, this has been our most successful season since 2012.

It shows what we are capable of, to have not only turned this around in such a short period of time, but to have even believed that it was possible in the first place. It is also exactly why we must keep our feet on the ground, because it proves how quickly things can change in our sport. If we can go from being one of the worst teams on the field to Championship winners in less than two years, you can most certainly go in the other direction just as quickly. So, as much as we should celebrate the speed of our triumph, it should also serve as a warning that we mustn’t take our foot off the gas. The development race never stops, and we must ensure we remain at the forefront of that. The second you slow down, you get overtaken.

Thankfully, I can rest safe in the knowledge that we will now continue to push just as hard as ever. What we’ve achieved has been down to the restless excellence of our people, led by the remarkable Andrea Stella and his Senior Management team. A Constructors’ Championship is only achieved if every department is working in tandem. If they’re not collaborating effectively, then a race car doesn’t get funded, designed, produced, or built in time.

Every race weekend, you watch Formula 1’s best driver pairing, Lando and Oscar, get behind the wheel of the MCL38 and put in a shift for this team. More often than not this year, that’s been at the front of the field, with six Grand Prix wins, 21 podiums, and eight Pole positions, including a run of 14 consecutive podiums, the second-longest streak in our history. Our drivers have done us proud. Lando pushed Max hard in the Drivers’ Championship and is the first driver to finish second for us since Jenson in 2011. And in only his second season, Oscar has become the first McLaren driver to finish as high as fourth for us since Lewis in 2012. On and off track, both made huge strides this year, showing they’ve got what it takes to challenge for the Championship.

Behind every victory are those in the garage and on the pit wall - who have engineered the cars and made vital strategy calls - and those back in the UK - working from Mission Control and on our next-gen simulator - all of which is building on the efforts of those who have designed, produced, and built the car.

It isn’t only the race team. Our Commercial department has done an awesome job in supporting us through elite partnerships. Whether it is our Primary Partners OKX, Google, and more recently Mastercard, or one of the many other mega brands who have joined us along the way, every one of them has helped us to make a faster race car. They provide the team with the tools, technology and financial means required to compete at the front of the field, while ensuring we’re more efficient as a business and more engaged with our fans.

Our Finance department ensures we’re within the cost cap and being efficient in how and where we spend that money, providing the team with the resources to build and race the best cars possible. All of this is underpinned by our People team, who have played a key part in cultivating the right mentality, whilst only hiring those who will adopt our principles and improve us.

But ultimately, it all starts with you, our awesome fanbase. You’ve been mega. In amongst the complexity and competition of Formula 1, some people forget that the reason we go racing is to entertain Formula 1 fans around the world. Growing up, I have such vivid memories of McLaren’s fanbase, and it’s been brilliant to see it grow to new levels in recent years. It’s rare that I leave the house now without seeing some form of McLaren merchandise on the streets.

The support we’ve felt from the Papaya Army has been immense. You’ve backed us through thick and thin. For me, we have the best fans in Formula 1. You’re the reason why we went back to papaya and why we run our celebratory liveries, whether that be this season’s Senna-inspired takeover or 2023’s Triple Crown design.

We take on board your feedback and use it to inform our decisions, which is why we have such a unique relationship with our fans. Our Communications Department are vital to that. As well as keeping us on brand and on message, they play a pivotal part in fan engagement, ensuring that our fanbase has enough access to Lando, Oscar and the team through all the various different mediums.

If even one of these departments wasn’t best in class, I would be writing a very different letter to you all. If one department fails, it compromises every other department and renders their hard work meaningless. It’s a chain reaction.

But let me be clear, this isn’t the summit of our mountain. Ours isn’t a journey, it’s a quest, as we like to say internally. When I show up to work every day, that’s a journey: it’s going from point A to point B, you get there, and that’s your journey over. A quest is ongoing. We’re trying to fly to the moon, and we don’t only want to go to the moon once. We want to win the Constructors’ Championships multiple times. We want to win the Drivers’ Championship, and we want to win over and over again in every other form of motorsport we compete in. When we win once, we don’t stop, we dust ourselves down and get ready to win again.

Thank you all for continuing to be a part of this quest. We’ll see you again next season, ready to go again.

Forever forward,  

Zak