From Vader to Skywalker: Brown paints McLaren's turnaround in Star Wars terms

LONDON, June 1 : McLaren boss Zak Brown uses a 'Star Wars' analogy to explain the turnaround at the team since he joined and led them back to the top as a force in Formula One.

The second most successful team on the grid celebrate as reigning champions their 1,000th F1 start at this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, the circuit where they debuted 60 years ago and also won last year.

McLaren were going through tough times when Brown, an American whose marketing career took off as his own dreams of racing glory stalled, arrived on the scene in late 2016 before becoming chief executive in 2018.

"Our factory is amazing. It kind of looks like Star Wars. I felt we were Darth Vader. We were dark, we weren't very warm," he recalled at an Autosport Business Exchange conference during last month's Miami Grand Prix, which would have been the 1,000th race but for the cancellation of two Middle East rounds.

"And it was like 'let's go over to the Luke Skywalker side and be warm and welcoming and inclusive."

NINTH OF THE 10 TEAMS AND STRUGGLING

In 2017 McLaren were ninth of 10 teams in the championship. They scored just 30 points, far fewer than they took at Miami alone this year.

A much-trumpeted engine partnership with Honda, meant to revive the glory years of old, had turned sour as McLaren proved slow and unreliable.

"I think about my first day joining. It was a dark environment and that was literally from the paint on the race car being black and dark grey to the walls. You could feel it was a cold environment," Brown told reporters at the Woking factory last month.

"It wasn't a happy environment. The partners weren't happy, our drivers weren't happy, the majority of our race team wasn't happy. A lot of conspiracy theories running around.