Reports from The Race indicate that supercar manufacturer McLaren is backing out of its Formula E commitments when the series shifts to Gen 4 for the 2027 season. McLaren joined the series when it took over the championship-winning team abandoned by Mercedes, for the 2023 season as a customer Nissan team with financial sponsorship support from the Saudi Arabian dystopian super city project NEOM. The contract with NEOM was for the entirety of Gen 3, from 2023 to 2026, with an option to extend the deal another four years. As the wildly-exciting Gen 3 rule set comes to a close next year, NEOM has reportedly opted not to extend the contract, and McLaren has informed the team that it will be exiting the series as a result to focus on its newly-announced Le Mans Hypercar program. This leaves team boss Ian James looking for a new title sponsor and manufacturer partnership for his HWA team to continue to fight in the championship in the future.
McLaren has, thus far, had middling success in Formula E winning just once in early 2024 despite securing four pole positions and a few podiums with veteran racer Sam Bird and newcomer Taylor Barnard. The team seems to be on the right track in 2025, though the hectic shuffle of Gen 3 Evo racing hasn’t seemed to fall in their favor quite yet, I suspect the team will see the top step of the podium at some point this season.
What is NEOM, anyway?
Newsweek reports that construction on Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s “The Line” future city continues apace, despite documentary footage from ITV alleging that 21,000 foreign workers had been killed in the construction process and a further 100,000 have gone missing. The Line, a 110-mile long hollow skyscraper “contained city” began construction earlier this year and will allegedly house some nine million residents following its planned 2030 completion. The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund will allegedly put over one trillion dollars into the NEOM project, which will include four mega cities; The Line, Oxagon the “intelligent” port city, Trojena the fake-snow desert skiing destination, and Sindalah an island run almost exclusively by Marriott luxury hotels.
If Saudi Arabia’s PIF is already running out of money for its sportswashing campaign partnership with McLaren, the global economy might be worse off than any of us could have imagined. Is this the first sign of a mass motorsport exodus in a similar fashion to what happened following the 2008 global financial crisis, or just a blip on the radar of Saudi pulling back on its recent marketing efforts? Time will tell.
