McLaren Formula One: Organising for Agility

Set at the end of October 2025, this case examines how McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown turned a struggling Formula One outfit into a championship-winning team after years of poor performance, cultural dysfunction and financial turmoil, including during the Covid-19 crisis. Brown’s approach was straightforward: reshape McLaren’s operating model around shortened feedback loops, data-driven resource allocation and a cultural reset emphasising shared accountability and fairness. Having returned to the front of the grid with consecutive Constructors’ Championships in 2024 and 2025, McLaren faced a new set of challenges. With just a handful of races remaining in the 2025 World Drivers’Championship, its two drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, were separated by a single point, intensifying internal competition at precisely the moment when team harmony mattered most. As regulatory upheaval loomed in 2026, how could Brown manage intra-team rivalry without undermining trust and cohesion – and how could he adapt McLaren’s winning formula to sustain agility and performance under a new ruleset?