Formula 1’s Zak Brown on the Business of Winning and His New Book

“I sleep okay the night before the race. Not great. I never sleep great. I drink a lot of coffee. I’m a million miles an hour guy. Sleep’s a casualty. This is going to be the biggest day of my life, either the good way or the bad way . . .” That’s how Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing, opens his just-released book Seven Tenths of a Second: Life, Leadership and Formula 1.

The page-turner is a combination biography and business tutorial that uses the 2024 Formula 1 season as its framework. That 24-race period culminated with McLaren, second only to Ferrari as the winningest team in Formula 1 history, capturing the World Constructors’ Championship after a 25-year drought. With Brown at the helm, McLaren has claimed that title again this year, doing so while there were still six grands prix to go. In addition, both of its racers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, are currently in first and third, respectively, in the hunt for the Drivers’ Championship, which will be decided on December 7 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.  

The wins have been hard fought, but, fortunately for McLaren, Brown has been bringing plenty of fight for the majority of his 54 years, from a challenging childhood in Southern California to his own competitive career behind the wheel. Before this past weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix, Brown shared with Robb Report some of the life lessons found in his book, from what he learned meeting baseball great Mickey Mantle to how being an outsider has its benefits.

The title Seven Tenths of a Second relates to the pit-stop time differential that held the Formula 1 World Constructors’ Championship in the balance last season. In your opinion, how does that apply to business and life in general?

Never take anything for granted. I had so many people [saying], “Oh, you got this locked up.” Same thing going on with the Drivers’ Championship—everyone’s been, “Oh, you got it locked up.” No, we don’t. It’s not done till it’s done. You put in all this hard work: 24 races, 1,400 people, hundreds of millions [of dollars], and it comes down to one seven-tenths-of-a-second pit stop. Everything matters—the big stuff, the small stuff—because you never know when that small stuff is going to make a difference. Then, the pressure that the team was under to do that pit stop—that’s stepping up when the pressure is on, which you need to do in business.

A chapter is devoted to meeting your baseball hero Mickey Mantle when you were young. What did that encounter teach you?

It all starts with the fans . . . it’s about treating every fan with respect and giving them what they want out of McLaren. If I think about the Mickey Mantle story, obviously it didn’t start well, but . . . big heart to do what he did. And here I am telling the story, to this day, about what an awesome guy he was, once he knew it wasn’t a practical joke that was being played on him. He created a fan for life. That’s part of my role at McLaren . . . giving the fans an opportunity to feel part of the team. I remember the first Formula 1 race I ever went to, meeting my first driver, seeing my first car—I remember it like it was yesterday, I could paint the picture. It’s all about memories and entertainment. That’s what sport is, and it’s a big part of my job, but I enjoy it.

You mention having an “MBA in the school of hard knocks.” How did you rise above your turbulent youth?

I guess what I did was follow my passion. My passion just wasn’t school, and I wasn’t very disciplined. I just didn’t want school; in today’s world I’d probably be prescribed some sort of medicine . . . I’m sure there’s something that could have got me a little more focused. My passion just happened to be baseball and racing. I never quit because I wanted it really bad.

Where did the discipline that you’re now known for eventually come from?

It came from a lot of my mentors, [who] I still have to this day. They helped mature me and calm me down. After I did the book, I had this aha moment of why my racing career didn’t go further, and that’s because I was too emotional in the race car. I talk so much about passion versus emotion. I look back when I was racing, and I was emotional, I was angry at myself. In the helmet, you talk to yourself—sometimes you just got to calm down, relax, and go again. I say it now. I didn’t practice that when I was racing, so that was one thing I learned about myself through doing the book.

You also admit to having often felt like an outsider. How has that been a strength?

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It teaches you to be entrepreneurial. It teaches you to figure out who your friends are and aren’t. Being an outsider also gives you a thick skin . . . you lose more than you win, and there’s not a lot of people helping you out, so it teaches you tenacity and not quitting, because the weak will die in business.

How do you know when to step away from one dream to make another a reality?

I think dreaming is great. Dreamers, I’ve found, are people who think dreaming is enough to get the dream. I probably get a little annoyed when people take for granted, “Well, I’m going to just do this.”  I hope you do, but are you prepared to fail a thousand times? I think it’s the dreamers that, maybe, aren’t real with themselves, don’t know how to look in the mirror. I had so many people tell me to stop racing. I didn’t want to hear it, but I eventually figured it out. I think, also, it’s about surrounding yourself with people that are real with you. If someone is trying something and it’s not working, they need to figure out why. Sometimes you can figure that out on your own, sometimes you need someone to point it out to you.

Explain the importance of focusing on outputs rather than results.

Of course we want to win this weekend but . . . we’re thinking about practice on Friday, qualifying Friday afternoon . . . we just live in the moment. If you do the best you can, and you know what you’re trying to do, then the results kind of take care of themselves. That comes back to the dreamer versus dreaming. If you only dream of first place, but you actually don’t do anything about it, your dream is not going to come true.

What are a few takeaways you hope resonate with readers of Seven Tenths of a Second?

To me, the power of any business and sports team is the team itself. I think I’ve assembled the best team in Formula 1. The book talks a lot about trust, teamwork, learning by mistakes, and not being afraid of mistakes.