McLaren CEO Zak Brown has revealed how he was eager to move his team away from a “dark and cold” image that existed under former team boss Ron Dennis.

The infamously clinical Dennis had imbued a very serious approach to his racing, with McLaren’s cars featuring a predominantly black and silver livery between 1997 and 2016.

Zak Brown: McLaren played the role of Darth Vader

Dennis, who had taken over McLaren with his Project Four outfit in 1980, raced with straightforward red and white liveries, in deference to title sponsor Marlboro, up until 1996.

Having switched to Mercedes power in 1995, the arrival of new title sponsor West saw McLaren swap to black and silver, with only small dashes of red, with this livery remaining in place for the next decade. While red gained further ground on the livery in 2007 as title sponsor Vodafone arrived in place of West, the car offerings from Woking remained dark up until 2016.

However, with Dennis departing the team in 2016 as the board opted for change with Zak Brown being appointed to executive director before assuming his current CEO role in 2018, the changes at McLaren came in in 2017.

Dropping the ‘MP4′ nomenclature which Dennis had used for over 30 years, the team also swapped colour scheme to revert to the papaya colour which had been on the very first McLarens under team founder Bruce McLaren in the late 1960s.

It’s taken seven years, but this iteration of McLaren has returned the team to the top of F1 as it won the Constructors’ Championship in 2024 – its first title since 1998, under Dennis.

With Brown’s direction of travel now yielding results, the American explained that he had been eager to move his team away from Dennis’ image.

“I’m more concerned with things outside the race track,” he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“Our offerings for the fans, building the brand, the sponsors. I think we’ve made a lot of progress there. You can never stand still because times change so quickly.

“The colour papaya has become a brand. If I compare it to Star Wars, McLaren has long played the role of Darth Vader. Dark, cold, terrifying.

“We’re trying to look a bit like Skywalker right now. Lots of positive energy, colourful, young. That’s the fan in me talking. On the track, Andrea Stella is working on becoming a team that wins regularly again.”

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But, while Brown may want to mould McLaren in his own image nowadays, he pointed out that the achievements of Dennis will never be forgotten – the British mechanic turned engineer turned businessman shaping McLaren into a formidable, multiple title winner that quickly became one of F1’s behemoths.

“I would never compare myself to Ron Dennis, because for me he is one of the three greatest legends of motorsport alongside Enzo Ferrari and Bernie Ecclestone,” Brown said.

“They created what Formula 1 is today. I would like to be on that list, but I would never dare to put myself on it today. I won six races with McLaren.

“Ron had that in titles alone. But I already feel like the captain of an incredible team that wants to live up to the success that McLaren has had in the sport over many years.”

As CEO, Brown appointed Spaniard Andrea Stella to be team boss at the end of 2022, with Stella bringing about the final changes needed within the team’s structure to make it a consistent frontrunner again.

In modern F1, Brown said, it’s no longer possible for one person to have the same influence as what Dennis had during his time in F1.

“Today’s team bosses can no longer be compared with those of the past,” he said.

“The teams have become far too big for Ron Dennis to control everything. If you want to do it right, you have to have a team principal and a managing director. Andrea only looks after the team, I look after the rest.

“I have the feeling that I work for the team and not the other way round. My job is to support him. With the financial resources, with the political issues.

“If Andrea was distracted by media work, marketing, contacts with shareholders or sponsors, he wouldn’t be able to do the job he does. With him, I knew what I was getting myself into.

“Our personalities fit well together and we complement each other in our work. The same applies to the other directors. If you want to be successful, you have to have a culture in which people trust each other.”

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