2025 McLaren F1 Team

[90feet]

Nope, which is why they sold 33% of the team which they sure as hell wouldn't have done if they could help it.

https://thesportsrush.com/f1-news-zak-b ... employees/

Zak brown himself has said all this.

Yet another example of an F1 fan not knowing a damn thing about the real world and thus not understanding the nuance on why these financial moves are made. You don't have to learn, but at least stop running your mouth about things you don't understand.

Had they not received a financial injection in the form of MSP Sports Capital buying 33% of the team’s shares, Brown is unsure if they would have survived. However, he remained confident that the team’s shareholders would never have allowed it to go bankrupt, although he admitted that “it was not a pleasant situation.”

It's funny when someone understands a topic so poorly that they don't realize they've proven their opponent's point.

[mwillems]

Yet another example of an F1 fan not knowing a damn thing about the real world and thus not understanding the nuance on why these financial moves are made. You don't have to learn, but at least stop running your mouth about things you don't understand.

Had they not received a financial injection in the form of MSP Sports Capital buying 33% of the team’s shares, Brown is unsure if they would have survived. However, he remained confident that the team’s shareholders would never have allowed it to go bankrupt, although he admitted that “it was not a pleasant situation.”

It's funny when someone understands a topic so poorly that they don't realize they've proven their opponent's point.

You're not an opponent, why do you carry this mentality, we are just talking.

Mclaren were struggling to put together a £200m budget when RB were at £300m and Mercedes and Ferrari much north of that (2018). It's all publicly available information. For the 2 years preceding COVID and after the Honda loss we incurred £100m debt just to be able to spend 50% less than the next spender up and nearly a 100% less than the two teams after that.

If somehow then we weren't saved by the budget cap, you're going to have to argue with their publicly held balance sheets, not me.

Granted, before 2018 it wasn't money, we had comparable budgets, we were just f*cking up. But without a doubt the budget cap helped put us into a place we could afford and work towards making a profit.

Hell, even in the first year of the budget cap we still needed a shareholder injection. FY23 was the first profitable year for Mclaren racing in a very long time.

[90feet]

You are my opponent because you are lying, and liars are bad people I do not respect. The budget cap claim is fiction. YOU MADE IT UP. NO ONE HAS EVER MADE THAT CLAIM OUTSIDE OF THIS FORUM. That you think you yourself can invent such claims based on perusing balance sheets is unhinged. That's not how thinking works. You require an actual source making such claims, and you don't have one, therefore you are wrong.

--- drop it, my god.

[90feet]

This is a company that had so much cash available to spend that they front loaded all their capex before the budget cap even came into play. They've expanded into other racing series specifically to use all the resources and funding they now can't use for F1 under the cap. Ridiculous to claim they were rescued by it. Completely ridiculous.

[mwillems]

You are my opponent because you are lying, and liars are bad people I do not respect. The budget cap claim is fiction. YOU MADE IT UP. NO ONE HAS EVER MADE THAT CLAIM OUTSIDE OF THIS FORUM. That you think you yourself can invent such claims based on perusing balance sheets is unhinged. That's not how thinking works. You require an actual source making such claims, and you don't have one, therefore you are wrong.

--- drop it, my god.

But the fact that we couldn't compete with their budgets and we nearly went bankrupt is a fact, seems relatively easy to see that without the budget cap we would have struggled to get even a mid sized team budget and that we were leveraging debt just to do that. As I say, this is all publicly held information.

I'm here to discuss stuff, you're own frustration isn't my problem by the way if you want someone to just agree with you, this probably isn't the best place for you.

[mwillems]

This is a company that had so much cash available to spend that they front loaded all their capex before the budget cap even came into play. They've expanded into other racing series specifically to use all the resources and funding they now can't use for F1 under the cap. Ridiculous to claim they were rescued by it. Completely ridiculous.

They were a minority Shareholder until 2021 of a team in a series that has an annual average budget of $6-$8m. Let's say they produced half the budget, it was £2-3m. It's nothing to do with this conversation. It will barely touch the sides of the cost of making all the parts for 2 F1 cars.

[mwillems]

I'm here to discuss facts. I'm not asking you to agree with me, I'm asking you to speak factually, and instead you've chosen to lie. If you're telling me that this forum is some kind of collaborative work of fiction, rather than a real world F1 discussion forum, then I would agree that I have found myself in the wrong place.

You don't understand what you are talking about at all. You are an F1 fan with no understanding of corporate finances who very wrongly thinks you can peruse Companies House and invent claims that don't exist elsewhere and then declare then as fact. This is not how real life works. You need to stop.

Find an article or a direct source from McLaren specifically stating that they were rescued by the budget cap. Otherwise do not mention it again.

Dude you're getting so uptight because someone doesn't agree with you. Take it a notch down. I do understand finance and I do understand what the team have said. if you want to direct me to some numbers in the accounts, which you feel adequately tooled to understand better, then please quote them. I'm satisfied that having worked closely with finance functions for a long time, worked through the UK's Making Tax Digital programs and a prominent member overseeing data at a big investment bank, that my ability to understand accounts isn't too rusty if not perfect

Also, please explain what you mean by "rescued"? It's clear Mclaren would not have been able to compete without it. Would they have been able to survive? yes, possibly, but possibly like Williams have survived. But this is not competing, it is just turning up. For sure, we could not be the team we are today without it. So if anyone were to say we were rescued by it, I'd totally understand.

If you are going to extremes and interpreting this to say we'd have been bankrupt without it, well then I'd say, those words never came out of my mouth.

But the F1 team had about £150m of CLNs by 2020 which if shareholders chose to option would quite possibly have finished us off.

Also, I know you mention facts, but you don't seem to have really stated much by way of fact or evidenced it.
Perhaps if you are right you could post some of the actual facts and then evidence them?

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention that Mclaren had to not only sell a third of the team and the MTC, they also had to sell £70m worth of heritage assets in 2020 too. Just reading the FY20 commentary and the EBITDA for 2020 was a £50m loss before sales and investments saved them.

[CMSMJ1]

mwillems has literally been looking at McLaren Automotive finances and making up nonsense statements about the F1 teams, lmfao. What an absolute buffoon.

Now now ..

You have demanded, rudely in some of your posts, for evidence.
Debate the posts.

You should surely know that shouting louder and shutting down debate rarely changes minds?

You are over stepping and becoming boorish with your posts and getting to be personal too.

Wind your neck in.

[Darth-Piekus]

Personally I have no idea how companies work. I also work on facts. It's also true that Red Bull and Mercedes were higher names than Mclaren due to their dominances and Ferrari still carries the Schumacher dominance. However what most people fail to understand is that things change and evolve. Ferrari hasn't won a single title since 2007, Mercedes has been struggling for results for 3 years straight and they are going for 4th without Lewis losing precious sponsors after he left and Red Bull is on the decline without Newey. Based on what facts can people claim that Mclaren won't be able to turn the tables now that they have touched the top and improve it's budger? As wkst and Emag said (and fell into a double edged trap sword that goes both ways) sponsors don't care who you are or what you did. If Mclaren keeps winning titles who do you think will attract sponsors more than the champion winning team? After Hamilton, Max and Alonso who won't stay for much longer in F1, Mclaren currently has the biggest names and trajectory to attract the best sponsors. That here is a fact well established.

[Darth-Piekus]

Just to add something regarding the situation. If Mclaren was about to go bankrupt why would they even extend to other motorsport caregories or spend millions to build new facilities? As Zak said they have the biggest and richest royal family from Bahrain behind them who have stakes in the team. They would never let the team go bankrupt and those Arabs seems to be making money out of money trees.

[90feet]

What the people who don't understand real life aren't getting is that the Bahrainis are investors. Any amount they spend on subsidizing McLaren will cut into their investment, but of course McLaren going bankrupt would negate that investment almost entirely. So they are never going to let the companies fail, but they're also going to make an effort to achieve stability without simply cutting check after check. That's why they sold the HQ and a third of Racing. Not because they were absolutely forced to.

[hollus]

Many posts have been deleted.
Please remain civil, insults and fights will likely be deleted again if they appear.

[mwillems]

What the people who don't understand real life aren't getting is that the Bahrainis are investors. Any amount they spend on subsidizing McLaren will cut into their investment, but of course McLaren going bankrupt would negate that investment almost entirely. So they are never going to let the companies fail, but they're also going to make an effort to achieve stability without simply cutting check after check. That's why they sold the HQ and a third of Racing. Not because they were absolutely forced to.

I did already direct you to the accounts and posted the links about bankruptcy.

I did also explain early on that I am not suggesting the budget cap kept the team.afloat but that in my opinion they would not have been competitive without it.

I assumed you were able to look at companies house given that your posts inferred knowledge of finance, but I will post the P&Ls and the directors statement that backs up my beliefs.

Also, you made a remark about capex and the teams money in reserve, but it's well documented that until after covid, all capex projects were on hold for a year or more until the owners were happy that the team had the money to spend. If i recall correctly, that capex was funded by debt and ill confirm this later.

[Darth-Piekus]

Mwillems all of this is irrelevant. So what if Mclaren had financial or whatever other problems in the past due to underachieving from 2013 to 2022. Nothing suggests that they won't be able to become bigger names than Ferrari who hasn't won a single title in 16 years, Mercedes who have been struggling for 3 years and Red Bull who is in decline. Now that they reached the top and they seem to be making strides each year attracting better and better sponsors with a driver couple that is the best around all they can go is up and built a new legacy. Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari can claim all the big name they want but sponsors won't care what you did in the past. The moment you are no longer irrelevant and can't follow evolution you are done.

[CjC]

Rob Marshall interview:

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/324503/w ... laren.html

Fantastic interview.

I found very interesting what he said about the lack of history at Red Bull and Mercedes and how that’s portrayed by the fans.