For as long as sports have existed, perceptions have been an integral part of the industry. It is essential to keep fans invested in the team no matter how they are doing. However, this area of the industry has been largely overlooked, as many focus solely on performance. The issue of perception is one that the McLaren Racing Team has struggled with for years.
The issues started in their 2022 season as they announced they would not be resigning Australian Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo. During this time the team began to face harsh backlash as reports came out of potential “mistreatment” of the driver and as Ricciardo began to speak out about the toll that working for McLaren had put on his mental health. To distract from that negative attention, the team decided to push harder into their “we are a family” strategy across both their IndyCar and Formula One teams. After all, this was a strategy that had worked well for them in the past and continued to do so for a large portion of 2023.
That was until Alex Palou, three-time IndyCar Champion, decided to cut ties with Arrow McLaren, McLaren’s IndyCar team. Following this decision, Zak Brown, McLaren Racing’s CEO, sued Palou for breach of contract. Though at first Palou’s decision seems inconsequential to the team’s PR, it set off a domino effect that could bring down the team’s “family” image forever.
After Palou decided to severe ties with Arrow McLaren the team chose young driver David Malukas to drive the car No. 6 in his place. Malukas was quickly accepted, winning over the hearts of many fans. He embraced the PR aspect of the team and through what fans saw of his relationship with his teammates, the idea of a “family” was once again alive, for a couple months at least. However, the bliss would not last for long, as right before Malukas big debut in the papaya car, he suffered a biking accident in training and broke his wrist taking him out for several races. As Malukas worked through his recovery the team seemed to be supporting him through it. However, this all changed at the end of April, when Malukas shared on social media how excited he was to get back in the car soon. Two days later McLaren announced that the team would be releasing Malukas from his contract, and replacing him with Formula Two champion Theo Porchaire. Though the announcement came as a shock, a fair amount of fans were understanding of the decision, given that the driver had missed four races which, as per his contract, allowed the team to part ways. However, others criticized the team for the way in which the team continued to use Malukas in PR even though they knew they’d be letting him go mid recovery. This decision was a turning point for McLaren’s PR; it created permanent cracks into the “family” image, cracks that the team has yet to recover from.
After replacing Malukas with Porchaire once again, the team attempted to redeem their image and fans accepted Porchaire onto the team. That was until the beginning of June, when merely a day after Porchaire had tweeted, “Man I can’t believe I’m gonna race on the legendary Laguna Seca this weekend. Can’t wait to be there for the Grand Prix of Monterey” Arrow McLaren announced they would be replacing Porchaire affective immediately. This time with Nolan Siegel, who had just won the 24hrs of Le Mans in his first time competing. Siegel was the fourth driver to drive the Arrow McLaren car No. 6. This was the brick that destroyed the house of McLaren’s “family” persona. McLaren faced a lot of backlashes from fans, especially since Porchaire had been performing well and slowly improving as the season went on, which is expected from a rookie. This announcement solidified for IndyCar fans that McLaren’s treatment of their driver’s was nothing less than questionable, though this sentiment was mostly centered around the IndyCar fandom the overlap of fans in motorsport series was large and it wouldn’t take long for McLaren to show this behavior in the F1 circuits.
The 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix was a turning point for McLaren. This was the race that fully brought the façade down for all Formula One fans. The race took place on July 21st at the Hangaroring. From the start, everything seemed to be going in McLaren’s way, with their two drivers locking out the front row; Lando Norris starting from pole position and his teammate following closely behind in second. As the five lights went off, simultaneous attacks from Piastri and Max Verstappen landed Norris in third place and gave the lead to Piastri.
The race remained that way for most of the way until a strategy call from McLaren saw their two drivers switching with Piastri moving from first place to second behind his teammate. The switch came after a set of pit stops when the team decided to pit Norris first, giving him the race lead.
However, this was not the only mistake they would make in this race. Instead of doing what many other teams would have done and give the drivers team orders to switch or allow them to fight for position, instead, the team decided to guilt trip their driver.
After Norris took the lead, his engineer radioed the driver to switch positions “at his convenience”. A couple laps later, after Norris had built a five second gap between his teammate, the team began to guilt Norris into giving the position back. They would mention how “This isn’t how you win a championship” and how he “will need the team.” After several laps of radio messages like this Norris finally gave the position back. This situation enraged fans of both drivers, for both the way that the situation was handled by the team and for creating this situation to begin with. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and turned most of the Formula One community against the team.
Fans of both drivers were outraged by the way the team handled the situation. Piastri’s fans were enraged by the team’s decision to pit Norris first even though Piastri should’ve had the preferential pit strategy given he was leading the race. Fans were also angered by the way this seemed to “taint” Piastri’s first win. The only thing both fans and media talked about after the race was the controversy instead of the win of the young 23-year-old Australian, who took his first win in only his second season in Formula one. His win comes in an era where the Mercedes and Red Bull domination made a feat like this seemingly impossible.
As for Norris’ Fans, they were outraged by the way in which the team treated the driver. Fans pointed out how many of the team radios to Norris seemed to blame the driver for a mistake that the strategy team made. Fans were also angered at the team for putting Norris’ chance to win the championship at risk. As Norris and three-time World Champion Verstappen, are currently engaged in the first championship battle since 2021. Although Norris has a long way to go to catch up to Verstappen and at the time stood 84 points behind the three-times champion, this just further reinforced the importance of a win for Norris’ campaign.
Fans criticized the team for not taking their driver’s championship chances seriously and seemingly sacrificing their driver’s championship for a mistake the team made. Even with heavy criticism the team still refused to acknowledge the possibility that Norris could win championship until after the Dutch Grand Prix, which took place almost two months after the Hungarian GP.
The strategy of presenting themselves as a “family” in such a cutthroat environment like motorsports was one that proved to be a deadly choice for the team. It is a strategy that the team seems to continue to try and employ. However, fans have been a lot less welcoming to it as time goes on.