Zak Brown believes McLaren’s return to its distinctive papaya identity played an important role in rebuilding a Formula 1 team that had once been struggling financially, commercially and competitively. The transformation eventually helped take McLaren from one of the darkest periods in its history to consecutive Constructors’ Championships, with Brown and team principal Andrea Stella becoming central figures in the revival.
Last December, McLaren lifted the Constructors’ Championship trophy for the second consecutive year after a season it had largely dominated. Looking at the team’s trophy cabinet today, it is easy to forget that at the beginning of 2023 the papaya car was fighting near the back of the grid – and that, only a few years earlier, the entire operation had been facing severe financial difficulties.
At Woking, there had been fears over the team’s future amid a shortage of sponsors, poor results, tensions with drivers and the difficult Honda partnership that famously produced the “GP2 engine” criticism. The contrast with the modern McLaren Formula 1 team could hardly be greater.
Zak Brown and Andrea Stella helped rebuild McLaren
Zak Brown and Andrea Stella became two of the driving forces behind McLaren’s recovery, rejuvenating the atmosphere inside the organisation and creating a leadership structure built around greater positivity and cooperation.
For Brown, running a Formula 1 team does not require the chief executive to understand every technical detail. His responsibility, he believes, is to understand people and ensure specialists have what they need to succeed.
“In my role, you don’t need to be a technical expert, but an expert in people. I can’t know everything about every department – to me, they speak a language I don’t understand – but it’s my job to give them the right resources,” the McLaren CEO explained on The Race podcast.
Brown arrived at a team whose problems went far beyond lap time.
“When I arrived, the team was broken: people were always arguing, the fans weren’t happy and, as a consequence, neither were the sponsors. We were coming off the worst season in our history, but I knew I had a great brand and great people.”
Why McLaren returned to papaya
One of the most visible elements of McLaren’s rebranding was its move towards a brighter, more distinctive identity. The papaya colour made the cars immediately recognisable on track and created an equally strong visual identity for supporters in the grandstands.
It was a deliberate contrast with the darker colours McLaren had previously used.
“We painted the livery papaya, a warmer, more welcoming colour, in contrast to the grey we had before,” Zak Brown explained. “At first, people in the paddock laughed and said we looked like something out of Star Wars.”
The criticism did not trouble Brown. In fact, he openly embraced the idea that the changes had been designed with supporters in mind.
“They accused me of doing everything just for the fans, and they’re right, but not many people understand that we’re here because of them. We created new confidence in the team by starting with the area I knew most about, which was marketing.”
Marketing became the starting point for McLaren’s F1 recovery
The papaya colour alone did not make McLaren competitive again. Its importance was symbolic and commercial: it helped give the team a clearer identity at a time when Brown was trying to restore confidence among fans, employees and sponsors.
Improving the commercial side then gave McLaren more opportunities to invest in the areas required to rebuild its Formula 1 operation. Stronger sponsorship, better resources and a healthier internal environment eventually combined with the technical restructuring that followed.
That recovery has continued into the current technical era, with McLaren also crediting Mercedes HPP for an important part of its 2026 performance progress.
Brown’s approach was therefore based on rebuilding from the area he understood best. Marketing restored some of the team’s identity and commercial strength; leadership changes improved the atmosphere; and greater resources gave the technical organisation the foundations required to compete again.
Years later, McLaren’s papaya colour has become inseparable from the modern team. What initially attracted jokes in the paddock ultimately became one of the most recognisable symbols of a Formula 1 revival that took McLaren from uncertainty back to championship success.
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