Zak Brown compares modern F1 race weekends to "24 Super Bowls"

Motorsport photo McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has likened modern Formula 1 to a series of 24 Super Bowls for fans. Speaking at the Autosport Business Exchange Miami ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, Brown discussed how dramatically the race weekends have changed from a commercial point of view. The American, who has been instrumental in McLaren's impressive commercial turnaround, believes modern race weekends cater for both business-to-business and fan-facing partners.

"I see Formula 1 as 24 Davos from a business point of view, and 24 Super Bowls from a fan point of view," he said. "These events are all just massive now. "So we look for partners that are like-minded, that are synergistic with our brand.

And there are two types of partners - those that are on the B2B side, that can help us be a better racing team, whether that's technology on the race car or operating efficiency back at the factory, that can really contribute to making us a more successful business and racing team, and they do storytelling around that. "And there's a tremendous amount of executives that run around the Miami Grands Prix of the world, so there's a lot of business-to-business that's being facilitated where the racing is, just where everyone comes together. Oscar Piastri, McLaren Oscar Piastri, McLaren "And then we have great consumer brands that are about helping us engage further with our fan base, more engagement.

If we look at the Miami Live, without MasterCard and partners of such, we wouldn't have been able to bring that to our fans. "So we really rely on our partners to activate our fan base, grow our fan base, engage our fan base, or business-to-business partners. It's no longer a sticker on the side of the car, and because I love the commercial side of the business, the quantity of partners is only additive to the business that they all generate amongst each other.