The alternate reality where Zak Brown joined F1 - not McLaren
There is an alternate reality in which Zak Brown never spearheads McLaren's Formula 1 revival and instead works for the championship itself.
"I actually thought I was going to go there," he says of his late-2016 approach from F1's then-new owner Liberty Media, in an exclusive interview marking the first episode of 'In conversation with', a new series from The Race Business.
That prospect may seem alien to many of F1's new fans who mainly know Brown as a die-hard McLaren fan who happens to run the company. At least, this has often been his reputation in F1 - especially when he was underestimated in his early years leading the team, having replaced Ron Dennis.
It took a while for Brown to really get his feet under the table at McLaren, first joining in 2016 as executive director of McLaren Technology Group and then in 2018 as CEO of McLaren Racing - the role he still holds now - as McLaren restructured.
This tighter remit for him personally, and wider change in the operation of McLaren's businesses, set the ground for Brown to gradually oversee the much-needed transformation that ended McLaren's mid-to-late-2010s nadir and led it to eventually become world champion again.
F1 approach
It could have been so very different had he not been offered that initial McLaren job in time to stop a move to F1's commercial rights holder.
"I had an opportunity," Brown said. "Chase Carey was brought in [as F1 CEO] in 2016, who did a wonderful job.
"Chase actually used to be my client at DirecTV. So he was someone I knew - I didn't know him very well because he was the big boss at DirecTV. Eric Schenks was also there, who's now the CEO of Fox Sports, one of the owners of IndyCar.
"It's a very small world. Derek Chang [current Liberty Media president and CEO] was there. He was on the programming side. So I knew all those guys.
"I actually thought I was going to go there [Liberty/F1]. And then the McLaren opportunity presented itself."
Brown's introduction to a potential McLaren role was initially different. His first conversations were with Dennis himself "but the role Ron was offering wasn't as exciting as the Formula 1 opportunity".
The script then flipped when Dennis fell out with McLaren's shareholders and a very different job offer presented itself.
"They all divorced, and Ron ended up leaving the company," Brown said.
"And then I was presented with something that was more exciting than the Formula 1 opportunity.
"Formula 1 was an unbelievable opportunity, but the thing I liked about McLaren is I liked to race.
"When the lights go out, Bernie [Ecclestone, ex-F1 boss] used to go home. When the lights go out, I want to go racing."
Alternate history
McLaren's fate without Brown at the helm is a little easier to imagine given he has played a critical role in turning around its commercial fortune and setting up the management required to make the team a big player on-track again.
The likes of Andrea Stella, McLaren's team principal, were already part of the company when Brown joined - but Stella would likely never have risen to a position of such influence without him.
It is hard to imagine how different F1 would have been with Brown in an unspecified role. But as Sean Bratches was named managing director of commercial operations in January 2017 we can fairly safely assume - given Brown's background - that was the position he was earmarked for.
The fit was obvious. In a past life, Brown turned his failed racing driver career aspirations into rising up the business side of the sport. He founded Just Marketing International (JMI), which grew into the world's largest motorsport marketing agency and, through the guidance of legendary F1 executive and Marlboro man John Hogan, Brown gained access to F1's most powerful figures: like Ecclestone, Dennis, and Frank Williams.
Getting restless
Having initially sold a majority stake in JMI to private equity firm Spire in 2008, Brown relinquished the full ownership to Chime Communications five years later - and though he stayed in charge as Group CEO of its subsidiary CSM Sports & Entertainment, this ultimately began a period of restlessness.
"I was ready to get out of there, only because I was doing things that I wasn't passionate about," he said of a role that moved him away from racing directly and working in multiple sports.
The idea of going to F1 appealed because it combined the commercial and racing sides directly. Would Brown have had the idea Bratches had of making a Netflix docuseries a front-and-centre part of its marketing push? Maybe not. The roll call of major partnerships F1 has added over the years would have been right up his street at least.
Though it it is safe to assume Brown would have been a big asset to F1's commercial portfolio, ultimately it has fared very well without him.
'It was a mess'
Would that have been the case for McLaren? The team is probably relieved that is an alternative scenario it does not have to ponder given the state it was in at the time.
"It was a mess," he said. "The team was disgruntled. A lot of politics. Fans weren't happy. We didn't have many sponsors. What sponsors we had weren't happy.
"Other than that, everything was great!
"We had record-low sponsorship. We were coming off our worst season in the history of McLaren.
"But what I knew we had was a great brand that needed to be rejuvenated. And that's exactly what I started on, was the brand.
"We went back to the papaya, tried to become a more exclusive brand, a more energetic, colourful, friendly, warm - as opposed to what I call kind of Darth Vader: black and grey and cold and not very welcoming.
"And then just started building trust with the team, attacked the commercial side, because I knew that was an area I could make a difference. If we could get the commercial built up, we could hire the best drivers, we could get new windtunnels, things of that nature.
“Then it just started to feed on itself and has been an amazing run.”
For more insights and conversations around the business side of F1 and motorsport, check out The Race Business on YouTube.
