The whispers that McLaren Racing was eyeing sports car racing have circulated for months and it made sense: The brand is, after all, a supercar to sell to consumers and the truest platform to showcase high-performance vehicles would be a prototype class of sports car racing.
And even though McLaren wasn't at last weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, where Aston Martin, Ferrari, Mercedes, Lamborghini, Porsche and many others were represented, McLaren still managed to crack the conversation.
It was none other than John Doonan, president of IMSA, who said the quiet part out loud when, unprompted, in his prerace remarks about the strength of the series said: “It looks like the papaya army plans to join us.”
Is it true?
Maybe, according to McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown. But the more Brown talked, the more likely it sounded.
“Our automotive business, which we work very closely with, is clearly synergistic with sports cars,” Brown told The Associated Press. "McLaren Automotive is in the process of being acquired, so they’re going to become, again, a very healthy organization that wants to go motor racing and we have been for some time under review of sports car racing.
“I find the rules fantastic. The manufacturers have clearly voted in their confidence in the new regulations, and clearly sports car racing is once again a major form of motorsports and definitely has our attention.”
Don't rush out and buy your papaya gear just yet, though. Brown clearly has put careful thought into an expansion plan and is eyeing entry into the World Endurance Championship in 2027.
“For us to be ready for 2027, which is as soon as we would enter, we need to make a decision imminently, and I would say things are looking very favorable,” Brown said. “And whether we enter WEC and/or IMSA, that would probably be staggered. And at the same time, we're always reviewing our existing portfolio.”
What that translates into is simple: Brown wants to be in WEC in 2027 and in IMSA in 2028, and he's reviewing McLaren's current participation in both Formula E and IndyCar. Whether that means he scales back, the teams remain status quo or he drops one of both of those programs remains unclear.
McLaren currently fields two Formula 1 cars and celebrated winning the highly lucrative constructors championship last season. It has a two-car Formula E team and fields three cars in IndyCar, which, at the end of the day, is the the series the California-born Brown grew up dreaming of one day competing in himself. McLaren recently acquired 100% of the IndyCar program, has bought Andretti Global's old shop and invested millions in the series.
But the pressure to get into the hypercar class of sports car racing is real so that McLaren can race side by side with its automotive rivals.
“We collectively feel sports car racing is a platform that can really benefit our automotive business, as well as our racing business,” Brown said. “Sports cars is much more about the manufacturer and we at McLaren feel that's a great area we can work together.”
When McLaren took over sole ownership of the IndyCar program at the start of this year, Brown was deliberate in his wording. He noted the brand was deepening its commitment to motorsports in North America and wants to “strengthen our presence in North America, which is a very important market for our team and our fans.”
He never used the word IndyCar.
It didn't raise any red flags at the time, but now that the sports car ambitions are public knowledge, one has to wonder what he meant. F1 races five times in North America, a WEC team would likely enter the Rolex 24 at Daytona and an IMSA program in 2028 would give McLaren at least another 11 races in the region.
And in a worst-case scenario of the IndyCar program exiting full-time competition, Brown likely would still enter McLaren in the Indianapolis 500. But Brown was emphatic that he loves IndyCar, that that series is his longtime passion and he wants the numbers to work.
It helped that the 2024 F1 constructors title earned McLaren a $140 million payout in its first championship since 1998.
Brown as an individual already has a presence in sports cars; he's part owner of United Autosport, a team in which he's not involved in the day-to-day operations but gives him access to the rules and regulations and a front-row seat to what sports car racing can do for McLaren.
What that leads to, and how it will impact everything besides F1 in the McLaren portfolio, remains to be seen.
“When we take decisions on entering new forms of motorsports, we review our existing forms of motorsports,” Brown said. “We are clearly rooted in Formula 1 and always have been, so that program comes first. And we needed to get Formula 1 in a good place, on track and off. Clearly Formula 1 is in a very strong place. We’ll take a look at everything else.”
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Jenna Fryer, The Associated Press
