Brown on arriving at McLaren: ‘It was worse than I thought’

The American joined in November 2016 at a time when one of the most storied teams in the sport was at its lowest. The team, with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button driving for them, finished sixth in the Constructors’ Championship and suffered nine retirements across the season.

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The year later, the downward spiral continued as they slumped to ninth in the 2017 Championship.

Brown, among others, has been credited for overturning both the team’s fortunes as well as the work ethic at the McLaren Technology Centre but the 50-year-old has admitted that when he first walked in there, it was worse than he had expected.

“It was worse than I thought it was going to be as far as the environment, what was going on,” he told FOX Sports. “I joined in the worst year in the history of McLaren.

“We were in our second year of the Honda relationship, which we struggled with, but logic would say the third is going to be better than the second. It actually ended up kind of being the other way around.

“I don’t think that was by any means all on Honda, it was the entire environment. So I thought I was coming in to something that was already on the rebound and what I figured out was actually it was still going down.

“So that was a surprise but I knew given how many races this team’s won, how many Championships this team’s won, that there was a lot of talent inside here, but they just maybe