McLaren boss Zak Brown: "Verstappen belongs in a horror movie!"

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. This weekend, all the F1 drama could come to a climax with McLaren's Lando Norris being crowned world champion. We have had the double disqualification in Las Vegas from a 0.07 millimetre error. We've had Max Verstappen's impossible late charge and all season this battle with teammate Oscar Piastri. And the man who's masterminded it all, McLaren's CEO, Zac Brown, is with us today. Zac's story is fascinating, too. Someone who won Wheel of Fortune as a 13-year-old and pawned his prizes so he could go and buy his first go-kart.

0:41Zak Brown:Can I have a K, please? Yes, you can have two Ks. Now, all right, no help from our audience. Zac,$3 ,050. Identify this person. Wild Bill Hickok. Yeah, that's it. How has he orchestrated McLaren's resurgence then from no wins in nine years to back-to-back team titles? How has he kept two drivers happy when they're both fighting for the same world championship? And is he worried that Verstappen could spoil the party? Welcome to The Sports Agents.

1:25Hello, Mark. Hi, Gabby. So we're going to do F1 in a moment? We are indeed. It's building, as one would expect, to a very exciting climax. We're both trying not to be cynical about the disqualification, aren't we? We are. But we're failing. We're failing. Well, it's given us even more to talk to Zach Brown about. And it's been an interesting week in the Champions League. I was at Stamford Bridge. First time I've done a Champions League game there since the 2005-06 season. And in fact, the last Barcelona game I did at the bridge was the 2005 epic. Yeah. And I was I was very heavily pregnant with twins.

2:01So it was nice to be there without that kind of coating around me of baby, double baby. I often find, I often find Gabby, you have quite a lot of anecdotes around when you were pregnant with your twins. I kind of feel like your gestation period was about 18 months. Mark Chapman calls Gabby Logan an elephant on the sports agents I did I'd let me tell you with twins I was fairly elephant-like however on Tuesday night we were kind of pitching it and billing it as the start of a new rivalry rekindling the rivalry because of the fact that both these teams are very, very young I mean they do have outliers Lewandowski within their squads but Chelsea are extraordinarily young And it was 23 years, 278 days average age.

2:51And of course, expecting a certain 18-year-old Luminiumal to dominate things. And it was the other 18-year-old Esteva who ended up, well, I think Cucurelli, you could argue, dominated things. But it was a great night. And I haven't done a match at Stamford Bridge for a while, actually. I don't think since COVID. And I know it's not the fanciest ground in the Premier League. And it definitely needs a bit of work, doesn't it? I'm sure they'd love to be able to go and spend some money on it. But there is an atmosphere there because it's so intimate that it's quite special. It's not quite like the old Goodison.

3:19It's been a bit more modernised than the old Goodison was. But it might take on the mantle of one of the older grounds now that we actually like going to. There aren't many left, are there? Really? Yeah. And it's easy to get, although you have to do this like high wire act, don't you, to get up to the studio there. And then to get pitch side, you've got to walk up these very death defying stairs. but it's really easy to get around because it's so small because some of these big grounds you know I'm not moaning I love my job some of these big grounds the bit where they make you watch the game and the bit where you actually broadcast they can be eight minutes apart you know and we missed Araujo getting sent off when we came down the steps actually so you know you do miss things when you're on your way to the studio Wembley Wembley is one of the work from the studio back down to the picture as I say I completely and utterly love my job but that is a that is a serious trek to get from there and there's only one lift as well so everybody's going up and down in that you know when you try what people love is hearing us moaning about conditions at work don't they that's what they do like one of the times that i did that i used that time really productively and me and roy keen managed to work out what our bin rotations were on that for for when we got home so that we could work out which of the 12 recycling bins we both have that we ought to point out we don't live together just in the same in the same borough same district same council um so but interestingly going back to the football having watched your build-up on tuesday and seen the old footage of those old chelsea barcelona games when i was watching arsenal on wednesday it sort of brought to mind some of those older chelsea teams and i'm sure I will annoy both fan bases here but the sheer power and strength that Arsenal have reminded me actually of that you know you look at that that Chelsea team from the sort of mid 2000s with Cech and Terry and Lampard and Drogba and then throwing people like Makilely and so on and so forth that the power and the strength that they had and you watch Arsenal now and they have exactly the same thing all the all the way through their spine and beyond actually i mean they're fullbacks built beautifully to their um coming together on sunday hasn't it it has yeah for one of them it's going to be potentially a week they look back on actually and think that's that was the week that led them to maybe who knows two trophies they've both got to think of themselves as contenders in the champions league haven't they yeah and the other thing that i loved the other night in your build-up was you gave a massive shout out to the chicago bears because The Bears and the Eagles are on a part of Amazon's Black Friday coverage.

6:08You can watch it absolutely free. You've just allowed me to do an advert for Prime. Gosh, I think Global will be billing them later. One of the more professional adverts we've recorded. We're going to move on very soon. But can I just quickly mention, because you were away last week and we did a bit on Halo, which was the kind of TikTok account, which was three days old, I think, when it was finally canned by Sky, because it really sold sport to women in a very pink, feminised way using lots of patronising terminology. And then this week, we've had a similar kind of thing happen with the WSL making a draw on TikTok for the League Cup and it just has descended into complete shambles.

6:52The influence of GK Barry, who was actually on I'm a Celebrity, that's when I kind of first became aware of her last year, made references, sexual references lesbians handling balls apparently she also said spank for a bit of luck she said quite a few things which were close to the bone close to the knuckle, also dropped a ball when she took it out of the bag and then put it back in again now somebody there who was officiating said it was all fine and it was the same ball she took back out again but I mean you've done many a ball bag moment I've done many a ball bag You've had many draws under your broadcasting belt.

7:28I've done a few. And that's kind of a total no-no, isn't it? If you drop a ball, let alone the sexual references, but if you drop a ball... Do you know what? I'm a bit conflicted over this. I kind of think they tried something different and evidently from the reaction to it, it didn't work. But would they ever do anything like this with the men's league cup? No, well, do you know what? They did once try with the Men's League Cup and they took it, not that this is similar, but they went and did it in Thailand. Do you remember? Because of Carabao, the sponsors. And they made an absolute dog's dinner of that draw.

8:11Yeah, but you wouldn't get Roy Chubby Brown making jokes on a League Cup draw, would you? No, you wouldn't. And I'm not, no. I couldn't think of a more modern, smutty comic. They've all been cancelled.

8:25god for the light i am definitely not saying that i can under look there are different there are tears of experimentation yes and look they've made an absolute mess of it but the one thing you can't do when you do doing the draw is put the ball is put the ball back in the bag and it has happened that's my worst nightmare when doing a draw is that you'll ponder it, picks it out and puts it back in the ball. Donald Trump did the 92 League Cup draw. And that's relevant because, of course, it ties into two things. One, the World Cup draw is happening next Friday in Washington. And he's there. So, you know, only God knows what's going to go on in that draw.

9:06And maybe it's happened already.

9:11Maybe given FIFA's recent record, Ronaldo will do it and just choose who Portugal can play. I was about to tie into that because I was with Roberto Martinez, the Portuguese manager, when he got wind of the news the other night. He got an email while I was with him basically saying that, ques a surprise, Ronaldo's ban was going to be suspended. And he was laughing because obviously last week Gianni Infantino was in the White House with Trump. I mean, you can imagine that was probably maybe 0.5 or 0.6 on their agenda. How are we going to make sure Ronaldo gets to this World Cup? Right. No problem.

9:40We sort that. I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just. No, but I have more issues with that than a ridiculous draw. I mean, draws, just going back. I mean, Rod Stewart did an infamous one, didn't he? Yes, he was brilliant. Do you know what I mean? But they booked him as a straight character. They didn't know they were going to get sloshed from Rod Stewart, though, did they? We have had some ridiculous draws over the years. And not just in football. There have been, you know, challenge couples and all sorts. I just think after last week, what happened with Halo, I think maybe they might have been a little bit more cautious.

10:14Yeah, I agree with that. I do have a bigger problem with Ronaldo and FIFA. Just one more thing. The news this week that Abbey Dow, the England winger, who just won the World Cup with the Red Roses, 28 years old, has decided to call time on her career. Not through injury, not because she's been dropped, not because she's got grievance with somebody, not because she's fallen out of love with the sport, because she's an engineer. She's done her engineering degree. She wants to pursue something different and she's just happy with her lot. She says, I'm happy. I want to move on. And I kind of I kind of tingle now thinking about how rare that is that a sports person makes that call on their career.

10:50And her teammates seem really shocked. Ellie Kildun has put a post up just saying she'll miss her so much and what an amazing player she is. And I don't think any of them really expected this. And you look at the players who really hung on in that squad to get to the line, like Marley Packer and Emily Scarrett to get to that World Cup. and she's just going to walk away without going to the British and Irish Lions Women's Tour in 2027 which would be the first one, which would be historic and pursue things that she wants to do so I just want to give her the credit and applause for an amazing career and also for making a decision on her terms It's so refreshing isn't it?

11:23It is, I've had a great career I've done everything I want to do now onto my next career and I'm sure whatever she does she'll do it with style and her crocheting will continue That was her big hobby. Make sure you subscribe or follow. Don't miss our weekend edition. New content on that every week. This weekend, we're going to be asking what rules you take from other sports to improve football. You can get in touch with the sports agents at global.com. Messages on social media or via the link in the episode description. And thank you so much for filling in our listener survey, which is also on a Google form.

11:57and we've had a lot of responses from fans of football, athletics, rugby, cycling, rock climbing, cricket, gymnastics, snooker, golf, motorsport and more. And lots of love for the... Is this... Are we bringing back Family 14? Is that why we're doing listener surveys? Since you ask. Yeah, we did win that when we went on. We beat the Seamans. So hang on a bit. Who was... No, I forget. I know we've got to plug something away. So hang on. You, Kenny, both kids? So, no, it was my cousin because the kids were too young at the time. My cousin, my mum. Oh, who was the other one? My brother. My brother was on.

12:35Yeah. Oh, the best one, the best question that didn't go so well. A hundred people were surveyed and asked for a food you eat at Christmas. And Kenny said, haggis.

12:49Was that?

12:53I'm guessing when it went down to the, what do they call it, whatever the final bit is, you were one of the two from your family, were you? Yes, yes. Who went into that? Yeah, yeah. So I think we were on£30 ,000 for charity, though. So it was a lovely evening. Did you? Yeah, it was a lovely evening out. That's only second to me and Comedy Dave back in the Radio 1 days beating the Chuckle Brothers in the weakest link celebrity duos. You can catch up with all our past episodes on YouTube, Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm sure if you scour YouTube, you can also find the old episode of Family Fortunes.

13:25I will actually do that when I leave here. We've got there eventually. The CEO of McLaren Racing, Zac Brown, is next. The Sports Agents.

13:38The Sports Agents. With Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. Zac, welcome to The Sports Agents. You've already told us that you're a little bit exhausted. You've just got off one plane, heading on another plane. But that is, I guess, pretty much your life. And we are heading into, obviously, the kind of tickly bit of the season. Does energy start to wane or does this feel like the really exciting bit now where you can see the finish line, so to speak? When energy goes, it's just for a day. So I just got in from California last night after about a two-week road trip. We had Vegas and literally got home, unpacked my bags, packed my bags and had to be in the MTC, our factory early this morning.

14:26So last night I didn't sleep, but I'll get a great sleep tonight on the way to Qatar. So you do get tired, but never more than one day. The culture of the whole business is really important to you, I think, isn't it? In terms of transparency and, you know, everybody having a say and being able to communicate. and obviously the papaya rules that intrigue people so much that you are kind of saying to your drivers, go and race. Is that as clear-cut as that? It is. I think people have made the papaya rules kind of maybe more than what they are, which is really just respect your teammate, don't crash into them, and race hard.

15:05But they kind of took on a life of their own, I think, had we said over the radio. I think where it all got started from is one of the engineers said, don't forget the papaya rules. And then that just became a thing. Had it been, hey, don't forget to be nice with your teammate. No one would have ever talked about it again. So, you know, that's fine. It's become a thing. And we love papaya. So the more people are talking about papaya, the better. But it's been, you know, we're trying to do something. And we've got two races to go that most other teams don't try, which is to have two number one drivers and let them fight.

15:40to the finish. In fact, the last time that's happened was us in 2007. And the finish was our two drivers tied and Kimi Rackinen just snuck in to win the championship. So that is the risk that you take. But I'd rather have two drivers fighting for the championship than one. And two drivers fighting for the championship gives you your best shot in the constructors. And then having two drivers that are world champion drivers pushes the whole team along so I think there's a lot more upside than downside to having two drivers race who drives that ethos then Zach was that you when when you took over this role I mean you you talked about the team historically having having done that in the past is it a bit of both and and the follow-up for that is is one of the reasons this has become such a discussion as such a talking point is because it's so rare within your sport yeah i i think it's definitely rare within our sport so that's why everyone's speaking about it you know the funny thing is when lando was leading in the beginning of the year it was our oscar should support lando then oscar's leading all throughout mid-year lando should support oscar now here we again have lando in the lead and people saying Oscar should support well one race Oscar might be in the lead he could be leading going into Abu Dhabi so I don't see how you could possibly pick between the two if you one was statistically out that would be a different story but they both have a chance and you obviously believe they are as good as each other 100 % and so does this philosophy only work if you believe you know So if you – Yeah, if we had two drivers and it was clear one was a number two.

17:30Like Red Bull do. Like Red Bull, but that kind of has to develop on its own. We hired two drivers. Deliberately. Deliberately. Equal opportunity. Come back to your earlier question, McLaren's always done it that way. That's one of the things I love about McLaren. They've always been my favorite team. So that's always been our DNA, and we're not going to kind of listen to the noise or take the bait. of everyone trying to encourage us because everyone, they're a bit bummed that there's not been any arm wrestling matches between our drivers, but sorry. Can you talk us through your emotions since the Las Vegas race finished and how we've ended up in this situation?

18:12Yeah, so it was a very minor mistake with huge consequences, right? Getting disqualified from a race doesn't get worse. When you could have actually finished? Second and fourth, I think we were. Wrong time. Many other teams have had the same violation. It's unintentional. It's not performance enhancing. Ferrari and Mercedes have both been disqualified for the same thing in the last couple of years. But as I told the team, does that make us feel better? Not really. But what it does do is demonstrate these things do happen. It was the thickness of a piece of paper. Crazy. And there's two ways you can have too much skidware, not to get overly technical.

18:56One is to run the car too low, which is illegal. The other is you can have what's called porpoising, which is in the aerodynamic of these cars, they effectively bump up and down. And that's what we had. And so we weren't running too low. What we had was too much porpoising. That came from a lack of data coming out of Thursday and Friday where all the sessions were raining. But yes, nine other teams did get it right. So at the end of the day, we got it wrong. The FIA is looking at it because they also feel that the penalty is a bit draconian. But that's what the rules say. Right. So, of course, I was angry, as was the whole team, Saturday night, even Sunday.

19:40But then you get some good sleep, kind of let the drivers alone for 48 hours. and then everyone re-engages and everyone realizes a season's 24 races, not one. If you were looking in on this sport, as I often do as somebody who's not immersed in it, and you look at the drama and you look at the Netflix kind of drama and you think, well, this opens the door to Max Verstappen a little bit here. This gives the final two races a lot more jeopardy. As you've just said there, it's very draconian for what seems like a minor infringement. Sometimes it's hard to not be cynical on these things, isn't it?

20:15basically me and Gabby are both really cynical that is the bedrock of our podcast you're going for the conspiracy theory yeah not necessarily conspiracy but it seems convenient yeah you know I've had a lot of people ask me if that came out of my mouth it would kind of feel like an excuse so I'm kind of not going to go there I'm going to kind of go we got it wrong yes the rules are a bit draconian yes it didn't make a performance Yes, yes, yes. But we got it wrong at the end of the day. And the rules are the rules. I can't sit here and enforce the rules on the competition. And then when they come our way, go, well, kind of close is close enough.

20:57I don't think that's the case. A lot of people do. I don't think that's the case. And you know how strong a competitor and how brilliant Max Verstappen is at taking opportunities. Was that pretty much your first thought when you found out? Yeah, he's like that guy in that horror movie that right as you think he's not coming back, he's back. So what an unbelievable talent he is. He never makes mistakes. He seizes every opportunity. We've never thought he was out. You know, when we were, I think, at 104-point lead on Max, people were like, oh, this is a done deal. We've never thought it was a done deal.

21:36And here we are. And this is sport. You know, how many sports have we seen? I don't know if you followed the World Series, that looked like it was over until it wasn't. So I just think, you know, that's why we don't get too upset about any one thing. It's just it's sport. You learn, you live, you go again. Worrying about Vegas today is not going to make us faster tomorrow. I think both me and Gabby thought we'd really like to drill into what your job actually entails. Because we often, you know, talk to people in your positions. but you know with two races to go and the driver's title on the line where is your worth here as the boss of of this team is it a 15 minute chat with lando here is it a 10 minute chat with oscar there where do you come into your own over these final two i think kind of all the above definitely spending time with the drivers i was on the phone with both of them yesterday i'm very close with both drivers.

22:33That's something Andrea and I work on very closely. I think it's to provide leadership to the team, right? I mean, there is a lot at stake. While we all might seem pretty chilled, we're actually really not. We're just kind of trying to, right? It's kind of like if you're in the military, it looks all nice and orderly, but it's pretty intense what's going on. and that's our reality. Of course, it's intense, it's emotional, frustration, happy, all that, but you've got to just manage it. At a race weekend, I'm trying to free up Andrea so he can just focus on the performance of the team. So I'm taking sponsors, media work, representing the team, making sure everyone's in a great frame of mind.

23:19I'm trying to get a sports team and trying to get everyone operating at their best is about taking pressure out of the system, not putting it on. And my view is, my team's heard me say this a thousand times, they don't work for me, I work for them. And I'm not doing the pit stops, I'm not calling the strategy, I'm not picking the tires. What I'm trying to do is make sure that those people that do have those responsibilities are fully fed, if you'd like, and in a great environment where they can operate at their optimum levels. That's my job. And you mentioned there having the conversations with the drivers, the kind of piastri kind of crowd feel that perhaps it's not quite as even your relationship with both the drivers and that because you've known Lando for such a long time, since he was a junior driver, that there might just be a bit of favoritism towards him.

24:13That's total nonsense. And we hear the nonsense out there and there's a lot of it in on one end it's frustrating because you'd like to actually people are so uninformed with some of the prove that i guess isn't it from your point it's hard to prove it but like we know it oscar knows it lando knows it um our team knows it but unfortunately in today's social media world and clickbait headlines and everything is just the facts are just so wide of the mark sometimes it's actually they socialize together you know do they um they're very friendly when i said they socialize right they don't kind of hang out but they're very respectful and and and friendly i've never felt once any tension in the room which you can feel when you've kind of seen two people in the room they're totally relaxed anytime they get grumpy they get grumpy at andrea and i for maybe something that we've done they never get grumpy at each other not once do you read and watch and listen to you do do you don't you don't because because people in sport go one of two ways one they read it all and store it up or they try and shut it all out and just focus on what that you you're more of a consumer yeah i i am because I think it's important to know what people are saying and thinking because I'm responsible for the brand, if you'd like.

25:41So I do think you need to not take it personally. Oh, you're thick-skinned. I'm very thick-skinned. It's even kind of weird. I kind of enjoy some of the harassment. Slightly masochistic. Yeah, because it's so ridiculous. Unfortunately, my comms team won't let me reply because I thought, Can I be the one guy in sports who just replies with sarcastic comments? The problem is you just get it wrong a couple of times. Those sarcastic comments, when they're repeated in black and white, don't look how they were intended to sound. Zach, if you need someone to work for you just to reply with sarcastic comments, I'm very much available.

26:20It would be fun. It would be fun because I've had some belters coming back their way. But you've just got to move on. To the beginning of your, well, actually right back to childhood and how you got into this all in the first place, going on Wheel of Fortune, the famous clip where you're so cute. I mean, he's like such a lovely little boy. Yeah, a long time ago. So tell us, anybody who doesn't know, what you won on Wheel of Fortune. On Wheel of Fortune, I won the first two rounds, the Smurfs and Wild Bill Hickok. And I got a bunch of his and her watches. and then I went to the Long Beach Grand Prix for the second time.

26:56The first time I went was 81 when I was 10, just with my family, kind of the circuses in town. They weren't into racing. I'd never been to a race before. Loved it. But then in high school, my buddy's family was in racing. I had these watches sitting in my closet. We go back to Long Beach Grand Prix. We meet Mario Andretti, definitely one of my living legend heroes, Senna, Andretti, Hakenin, Mansell, Fittipaldi. Those are my five guys. And met Mario and was very nervous and just kind of worked up the nerve to say, how do you get started in racing? And he said, karting. And there happened to be kind of a quarter-page ad in the race program, which I still have.

27:40And I didn't think my parents would go for it. So I went and sold the watches and started karting and then did all my own sponsorship. I didn't know anything about sponsorship, but I was just, I need sponsorship to race, so I'm going to become an expert on getting sponsorship. And you didn't even finish high school, did you? No, no. So your parents must have, I mean, I don't know what their ambitions were for you, but they must have been a little bit nervous. They were. They weren't big at school themselves, but they both went. I think they gave up on me going because I wasn't going to go. I never went.