02/06/2026

SPORTS TUESDAY | JUNE 2, 2026 28 M CLAREN 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 dur ing 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.” In 2017 McLaren were ninth of 10 teams in

From Vader to Skywalker Brown paints McLaren’s turnaround in ‘Star Wars’ terms to make 1,000 GP starts

doing that because that’s what the fans want,’” he recalled. “I was, like, ‘Trick question? That’s why we’re doing it.’ McLaren, without a constructors’ title since 1998, returned to the top in 2025 and com pleted their first title double of the century last year with Lando Norris taking the drivers’ crown and Andrea Stella as principal. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, McLaren were in desperate need of cash. Now, with Bahrain’s Mumtalakat and Abu Dhabi’s CYVN in full ownership of the team and Formula One booming, the team is valued at more than US$5 billion (RM19.8b). “We’ve got the team working really well together,” said Brown. “We’ve been very stable. We’ve all been together for quite some time.” – Reuters

It was just about unlocking it, providing motiva tion, excitement, bringing some fun back.” McLaren were dominant in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost under the visionary leadership of Ron Dennis, whose legacy lives on in the space age factory as well as the sportscar business. Dennis, a big fish in what was then the “Piranha Club” of team bosses, was ousted by the majority shareholders in late 2016 after sev eral years of upheaval. The team livery had gone from red and white during the Marlboro years to Mercedes silver and then all-black, reflecting different partners. Brown set about building a fresh identity by going back to the original orange “papaya” col our of founder Bruce McLaren. “Someone said to me at the time ‘you’re only

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 part ners weren’t happy, our drivers weren’t happy, the majority of our race team wasn’t happy. A lot of conspiracy theories running around. “I think we’re a much more vibrant team now. There was a huge amount of talent in here.

TIMELINE: McLaren’s 1,000 F1 races

Swiatek exits, Zverev into RG quarters

1991: Senna’s third title. The Brazilian also won at home in the rain at Interlagos for the first time in his career. Exhausted, and lifted from a car that had been stuck in sixth gear over the final laps, he barely managed to raise the trophy. 1993: Senna wins the European Grand Prix in heavy rain at Donington Park. The Brazilian went from fifth on the grid to lead at the end of the first lap after picking off Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill, Prost and Karl Wendlinger. 1998: Finland’s Mika Hakkinen took his first of two titles. 1999: Hakkinen became a back-to-back title winner. 2005: Kimi Raikkonen won the Japanese Grand Prix from 17th place. 2007: Bahrain holding company Mumtalakat became a stakeholder. 2007: Formula One is rocked by the “Spygate” scandal, with McLaren fined a record US$100m (RM396m) for pos session of confidential Ferrari data. Lewis Hamilton made his F1 debut and went on to take a first win in Canada. 2008: Hamilton secured the first of his seven titles, the other six all won with Mercedes. 2009: McLaren handed a suspended three-race ban for misleading stewards in a “Liegate” case that could have led to Toyota’s Jarno Trulli missing out on a third place in Australia. Sporting direc tor Dave Ryan was fired as a result. 2011: Jenson Button won Formula One’s longest race in Canada. He had been last after 40 of the 70 laps. 2014: End of the Mercedes partner ship after 78 wins together. 2015: Honda made an ill-fated return as engine supplier, failing to replicate the Senna and Prost glory years. The team suffered 12 retirements and no podiums that year. The partnership lasted three unhappy seasons. 2017: McLaren returned to their foun der’s papaya colours. 2018: American Zak Brown appointed CEO of McLaren Racing. 2021: Australian Daniel Ricciardo ended the team’s nine-year win drought with a win at Monza, a rare highlight in an otherwise difficult stint that ended in early termination of his contract. 2022: Andrea Stella, who worked at Ferrari during their golden years in the early 2000s, is appointed principal. 2024: McLaren are constructors’ cham pions for the first time since 1998. 2025: The team become the second most successful of all time with a 10th constructors’ title. They celebrate their 200th win at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Norris wins in Monaco, the team’s record 16th in the principality.

1963: New Zealander Bruce McLaren, who had been racing for Cooper in Formula One since 1958, founded his own team in partnership with American Teddy Mayer. 1966: First F1 race, Monaco, May 22. The Robin Herd-designed McLaren M2B qualified 10th and retired with an oil leak on lap 10. McLaren had a team of six people, including the founder and his wife. 1968: First F1 podium with Denny Hulme second at Jarama in Spain. First win at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium with Bruce McLaren at the wheel after starting sixth. McLaren became only the third driver to win in a car of his own construction after Jack Brabham and Dan Gurney. 1970: Bruce McLaren died, aged 32, in a crash at Goodwood on June 2 while testing a new Can-Am car, Mayer takes over. 1974: Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi gave McLaren their first drivers’ title, with the team also taking a first construc tors’ crown. That same season McLaren also took their first win from pole (in Brazil). 1976: James Hunt was crowned cham pion after a memorable battle with Ferrari’s Niki Lauda down to the last race at Fuji. The Briton became the first McLaren driver to win a race from pole position with fastest lap (US Grand Prix) 1981: McLaren moved to Woking, Ron Dennis took over and designer John Barnard came up with F1’s first carbon fibre composite chassis. 1983: British driver John Watson won the Long Beach-US GP West from 22nd place, a record from furthest back on the grid. 1984: Lauda beat French teammate Alain Prost to the title by half a point, still the slimmest margin in F1 history in seasons where all points counted for the championship. Prost won seven races to Lauda’s five and also gave McLaren a first Monaco win. 1985: Prost is crowned champion, the first of the four times world champion’s three titles with McLaren. 1986: Monaco, McLaren’s 50th win. Prost won from pole with fastest lap. 1988: Brazilian Ayrton Senna joins alongside Prost. McLaren won 15 of the season’s 16 races with Honda power. 1989: Senna and Prost collided at Suzuka on lap 47 of 53. Senna finished first but was then disqualified, handing the title to the Frenchman who had retired. 1990: Senna and Prost, now at Ferrari, collided again at Suzuka and this time Senna was champion. The two Suzuka clashes rank among the most infamous in the sport’s history.

FOUR-TIME French Open cham pion Iga Swiatek exited Roland Garros on Sunday as the top seeds continued to fall at the start of the second week, while Alexander Zverev booked his spot in the quarterfinals. The Polish third seed endured a miserable 25th birthday as she went down 7-5, 6-1 to Madrid Open winner Marta Kostyuk. Since winning Roland Garros in her second appearance at the tournament in 2020, Swiatek had never gone more than two years without hoisting aloft the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen, but after Aryna Sabalenka ended her bid to win a fourth consecutive French Open in the semifinals last year, she has lost her unbeatable status on clay. Indeed since last winning in Paris in 2024, Swiatek has only lifted three titles in the two sub sequent seasons. “It is harder a bit to handle stress for me in, like, (the) last year,” she said. “So I feel like today I felt off, you know, and I did mis takes that I didn’t want to do, and I wanted to play safe, but the ball flew everywhere. “Suddenly these feelings came back, and I tried to work on it with my dialogue inside, but it was tough today. Yeah, so it all kind of went drastically down, and I played worse and worse.” For Kostyuk, reaching a first quarterfinal at Roland Garros was

just the latest high mark in a fine clay-court season, in which she claimed the 250-level event in Rouen, as well as a first WTA 1000 title in the Spanish capital. Elina Svitolina next stands

between her com patriot and the last four after she fought back to beat Swiss 11th seed Belinda Bencic 4-6, 6-4,

Carlo, but I think a lot of work came. Mentality improved a lot.” Fonseca said he felt more comfort able imposing himself against Ruud than he had during his earlier victory over Novak Djokovic in Paris, repeat edly taking the initiative against one of the circuit’s strongest clay-court play ers. “Against Djokovic was more men tal,” he said. “I was feeling more confi dent in today’s match and more aggressive, going for the shots and try ing to command on the points pretty soon.” – Reuters 6-0. “It’s exciting. Definitely she’s been playing really well,” Svitolina said of Kostyuk, who is on a 15 match win streak on the red dirt. “I feel like it’s going to be an exciting battle for Ukraine, as well, you know, that there will be one Ukrainian in the semis.” Sorana Cirstea continued her remarkable renaissance during her farewell season on tour as the 36-year-old bested Chinese world No. 148 Wang Xiyu 6-3, 7-6 (7-4). The Romanian will face Russian eighth seed Mirra Andreeva, who defeated 170th ranked Swiss Jil Teichmann in straight sets, in what will be her first quarterfinal appearance at the French Open in 17 years. Rising Spanish star Rafael Jodar battled back from two sets down to beat fellow countryman Pablo Carreno Busta 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. Zverev eased through the fourth round with a 7-6 (7-3), 6-4, 6-1 win over 106th-ranked Dutch lucky loser Jesper de Jong. – AFP

Alexander Zverev reacts during his match against Jesper de Jong (not pictured) in the fourth round of the 2026 French Open on Sunday. – AFPPIC

Fonseca says mentality shift behind rapid rise JOAO FONSECA said a change in mentality and months of hard work have helped fuel his rise to a first Grand Slam quarterfinal after the Brazilian teenager’s breakthrough run at the French Open. like two days with 13 days off and tried to play. “But what changed is doing a lot of physical stuff and working hard.”

After winning the 2024 Next Gen ATP Finals, Fonseca burst into the spotlight with an upset of Andrey Rublev at the 2025 Australian Open. He said his experiences over the past year had helped shape his pro gress. “The mentality also changed a lot, focusing on the points and not in the end of the match,” he said. “I’m out of home since Monte

The 19-year-old reached the last eight of a major for the first time on Sunday with a 7-5, 7-6(8), 5-7, 6-2 vic tory over two-time runner-up Casper Ruud. “Pre-season in December was pretty tough,” he told reporters. “Australia can be an example, because I was with no rhythm at all. Practiced