McLaren’s "no-blame" culture is powering its return to the F1 summit

McLaren’s leadership reset

McLaren’s return to championship-winning form has been built on more than performance alone. According to racing director Randeep Singh, a fundamental change in the way the team operates has helped create the environment behind its resurgence.

Zak Brown became McLaren CEO in 2018, opening a new commercial chapter for the team. Five years later, he promoted Andrea Stella to team principal. Since then, McLaren has enjoyed a meteoric rise, culminating in a double-title success last year.

Singh: ‘There’s no blame’

Singh told Sky F1 that the key shift came with Brown and Stella empowering people to perform their roles without fear of making mistakes.

“The main thing is just the leadership changed with Andrea and Zak, and I think that's just empowered everyone to go about their jobs,” Singh said.

He highlighted the pressure attached to decisions such as strategy, where outcomes are based on percentages and mistakes can quickly become costly. In that environment, he argued, a fear of judgment can prevent people from operating at their best.

“There’s no blame. I don’t know how easy it is to look over that,” Singh added.

For McLaren, the objective is not to avoid bad decisions but to learn from them. Singh said the team analyses mistakes, seeks to understand what went wrong and uses that process to improve, rather than allowing individuals to become the focus of criticism.

A consistent response to setbacks

“You don’t worry if there’s a bad result,” he explained. “If there’s a bad decision, obviously you try and dig into it and try and understand it and improve.”

Singh’s description points to a culture built around consistency. Good and bad outcomes are treated in the same way, with the emphasis placed on progress rather than blame.

“Good things, bad things, and you treat them the same way. So that’s really empowering,” he said.