McLaren CEO Zak Brown Says IndyCar Should 'Slipstream' Formula 1 More

We're about a month out from the first race of the 2025 IndyCar season — the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg — and this will be a big season for the series.

It marks the start of a new TV deal with Fox Sports that will see every single race appearing on broadcast TV.

But according to McLaren CEO Zak Brown, there's still some work to do and he talked about how he thinks the series could follow Formula 1's lead to increase its popularity.

Brown was at the Autosport Business Exchange: London event and there he talked about how he was pleased with the new TV deal, but mentioned how he thought IndyCar could "slipstream" F1 a little bit more.

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"I don't think it [IndyCar] slipstreams Formula 1 as much as it could," Brown said, per Motorsport.com. "They kind of want to be their own thing, which I think is great but when you see how popular Formula 1 is — I don't see Formula 1 and IndyCar competitive with each other. I think they [IndyCar] should slipstream on the back of Formula 1's success. I think they need to do more of that."

I think that only makes sense. Considering McLaren fields teams in both series, Brown has seen both growth strategies play out firsthand, and F1's growth especially in North America over the last five years or so has been massive.

Brown also noted some technical things that the series could change — namely the need for an update chassis as the current one is well over a decade old — but did note that the series plans to hold a race in Arlington, Texas around AT&T Stadium is a great move.

"I think that will be much like the Miami Grand Prix, so that's a step in the right direction," he said, alluding to one of F1's three US races.

I think Brown's right on the money here. IndyCar wants to grow, but it doesn't want to be an F1 clone. It's its own thing and I think we're already seeing that embraced a little more with some of the new commercials that have been running in the lead-up to this season.

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Matt is a University of Central Florida graduate and a long-suffering Philadelphia Flyers fan living in Orlando, Florida. He can usually be heard playing guitar, shoe-horning obscure quotes from The Simpsons into conversations, or giving dissertations to captive audiences on why Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time.