McLaren Formula 1 CEO: Zak Brown | Full Q&A | Oxford Union

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Zak Brown is an American businessman and entrepreneur, currently CEO of McLaren Racing. He enjoyed a ten-year career driving in GP motorsport, after which he founded Just Marketing International. Additionally, he is currently chairman and co-founder of the racing team United Autosports.

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[davidbryant]

Zak is the coolest team principal…his personality filters through the entire operation …if I was younger I’d try to work for them…

[OscarTahr]

This guy is one of the best things to happen to F1, not just McLaren. Obviously ambitious and driven and steely. But he seems to have instilled a great culture, put in great people and let’s them do their thing while he focusses on giving them the resources they need (especially chasing sponsors so the team don’t have to worry about that). And they have a focus on fun and enjoyment as well as being very professional. Seems a happy place - someone said it’s like finally finding a workplace where the job is fun and the co-workers are nice and the boss is a good person.

[midcitygym]

Glad they switched to the Audience to get some decent questions.

[ojncd]

I really enjoy listening to Zak and I love his approach and philosophy towards management and how he leads McLaren.  

Only critique is I did think the interviewer could have done a far better job as I found all questions were very generic leadership questions. Probably not their fault but I believe an interviewer with a slightly more sound knowledge of motor racing would have been able to ask more follow-up questions thus providing the audience far greater insight.

[davidgibsonphotography]

Great to listen to Zak....agree with other comments about the on many levels but she should takes this as a learning opportunity and be better next time

[x-marks-x]

This host who is giving the interview absolutely fails at conducting a meaningful interview. Zak is not even told he is welcomed for the interview and Zak tells many interesting stories but when the host literally just says: “intresting” or “great” or “definitely” half the time and absolutely does not ask him interesting questions to what he just spoke about that leaves us the viewers quit a bit the dark, there is so much we could have gotten to know about Zak if a proper interviewer was asked to interview Zak.

[valcarter]

Watching this makes me realise that F1 is now a business first and a sport second. Just like football etc.
But I think the guys like Zac - and all the other other team principals - see the business bit as a means to and end - money to go racing! They are racers at heart.
"When the flag drops the bullshit stops". (Except for last season when Lewis was robbed and the sports integrity was damaged!)

[davidwilson]

Daniel outscored Noris in the last half of last season plus got a win for Mclaren . Why no credit.
When he had the accident last race ( which his engineer admitted was his fault)
the first question to him, Is the car OK ? That tells us a lot about McLaren's interest in Daniel .
Must be hard to work for any company with an attitude where they worry more about the machine
than the person.

[jeremyzed]

Well he decided to stood our uni up after the first race, ಥ_ಥ.

[vercingetorix]

This is not a great interview in terms of depth of questions. They could have gotten a host who know anything about F1 or racing

[robstein]

Paddle shift now in everyone's car... Ummm... Not for most people and somewhat out of touch. Great team principle (pick you title) and clearly a racer at heart.

[davidwilson]

Time to stop bagging out Daniel Ricciardo. Lap 8 at Azerbaijan Daniel had the pace to overtake Noris.
WTF. Looks like team orders have a lot to do where Daniel has a big problem.

[martinboulden]

I think its very obvious Zak Brown is not the man for the job of getting McLaren to the front. Spends too much time playing with his toys and going on Jolly Trips when he should be working to get this team back to the front. Why are they messing about with all this gossip over summer with their driver issues. Embarrassing.

[ibukunogunfeitimi]

I am a great fan of F1 for over three decades and the future of F1 is promising via ®️ New Markets Business To Business To Customer Innovation ©️ likely to add IP value to F1 and beyond: (poineering revolutionary outlook via new advertising and marketing - business ™️.