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Some people consider me an old dinosaur, who will never change my views on anything. After all, my mantra throughout my life is Change is Bad! I am rapidly closing in on 67, I just started collecting social security and I will be retiring from my day job in less than six months. The chances of me being set in my ways are pretty solid.

But every now and then, I might surprise you. In fact, I surprised myself over this past weekend. Early Sunday morning, I was watching the Morning Warmup for the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto. The final two segments of the broadcast featured Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing.

Over the years, I’ve made my feelings fairly well known on Zak Brown. Basically, I didn’t care for him. I found him to be arrogant, self-centered and generally unlikeable. I may have even used the term “slime ball” once or twice to describe him. Over time, he has proven that a contract is nothing more than a suggestion to him – whether he is wanting to fire a driver from his team, or poach a driver from another team.

He has also driven up the price of doing business within the sport of IndyCar racing, by paying significantly more than market value for drivers as well as crew members.

Whether it was the way he took over Sam Schmidt’s team and immediately severed that team’s ties with Honda, only because Honda would not forgive him for comments made about their Formula One program; or the way he jettisoned drivers right and left unless they posted results immediately – there was a lot that I saw from Zak Brown to make me not care for him personally or the way he did business.

There was no denying the man was very successful, with his motorsports marketing company Just Marketing, Inc. He has also brought McLaren back to the level where they were in the late 80s and early 90s, when Ayrton Senna was driving McLarens in the famous Marlboro livery.

I also found that even though I still didn’t care for Brown, I had an appreciation for his pointed comments on IndyCar marketing he made within the past couple of years. Would you say I was warming up to him? Not exactly.

But when I saw the Zak Brown interview with the three booth guys on their now-familiar Sunday morning couch, I came away with a whole new perspective on Zak Brown. I did not see the arrogance I thought I had seen earlier. He wasn’t brash or pompous. Instead, I saw someone who was very introspective and appreciative for where he was in life.

When the subject of Arrow McLaren Team Principal Tony Kanaan came up, he didn’t just dismiss things with a general “Tony’s doing a great job”. Instead, he paused and admitted that Kanaan had met all of Brown’s expectations, but he was also very surprised by something TK brought to the table. He expected that someone who was as talkative as Kanaan would not be much of a listener. He was surprised how Kanaan listened to everyone and soaked in information like a sponge. He went on to explain that that Kanaan has even done a better job in his new role than Brown originally expected.

Brown was very transparent in the way he looked at things and evaluated people. It was very refreshing to hear how he valued the people around him. That was so far removed from the image of Brown I had previously as one who didn’t value human relationships at all. That’s not to say he wouldn’t drop Nolan Siegel inn a heartbeat, if Will Power was suddenly available to sign with Arrow McLaren; but Sunday’s interview with Brown showed a more caring and human side that I’m not sure I knew even existed.

Sunday night, David land posted a video of an interview he did with Zak Brown over the Toronto weekend. It was more of what we saw on Sunday morning’s FOX broadcast, but a little more candid. Land asked him if he would like to get more involved in IndyCar. He laughed as he said “…if there were more hours in the day”. I wish Land had been more specific and asked if Brown would like to be more involved in IndyCar marketing.

Brown is direct and doesn’t talk in circles. Quite honestly, I think he would be great at marketing the entire NTT IndyCar Series as he has his McLaren teams. Once we get into the offseason, I can see where a (new IndyCar President) Doug Boles and Zak Brown collaboration could be very productive.

Contrary to what the IndyCar employee told me a couple of years ago, when she said it was obvious I know nothing about marketing – I do know a little bit. It is what my degree is in, after all. I think Boles and Brown could do wonders moving IndyCar ahead in regards to marketing the series.

Was I just in an odd mood? I have included both videos below. The one from the FOX broadcast is first. I “think” I have it queued up to start at the point they came back from commercial and it leads right into the Zak Brown segment. If not, it starts at the 11:40/24:49 mark of the video. The full David land video is below it.

If you have time, check them both out and see if you see a change in Brown. Maybe I was too hard on him from the beginning when Brown and McLaren first showed up at Indianapolis in 2017 to run Fernando Alonso in partnership with Andretti Autosport; or maybe Brown has become wiser and more likeable with age. Whatever the case, I have a lot more respect for Zak Brown than I did a week ago. He might end up giving IndyCar the shot it needs in the future. For once, my opinion has changed. Could it be that change is…good? Most times, not.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on July 23, 2025 at 4:05 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.