McLaren Officially Announces Hypercar Racing Program, CEO Zak Brown Teams Up With United Autosports Co-Owner Zak Brown To Race At Le Mans

McLaren Automotive is busy celebrating the 30th anniversary of its 1995 Le Mans 24 victory this year at the race track, and as part of those celebrations finally announced that it’s getting serious about racing in the FIA WEC’s burgeoning Hypercar category. With 21 vehicles in the class on the grid in 2025, featuring entries from Porsche, Cadillac, Ferrari, Peugeot, Alpine, BMW, Toyota, and Aston Martin, the Papaya orange team is looking to add itself to the mix in 2027. While McLaren is looking quite strong in its racing efforts right now with wins in Formula 1, IndyCar, and Formula E in recent seasons, its GT racing program, a partnership with United Autosports in FIA WEC running the 720S GT3 Evo, has provided somewhat mediocre results. Perhaps elevating the program from the LMGT3 category to the hotly contested Hypercar overall victory will yield better.  

How did McLaren come to partner with United Autosports in the first place? Well, McLaren CEO Zak Brown is a co-founder and co-owner of United Autosports, so it seems like the choice was pretty simple. I imagine the conversation went something like this; “Hey Zak, do you want to race McLarens at Le Mans? Why yes Zak, I would.” I’m sure there were a few handshakes and contracts to follow, but that’s probably the gist of it. And no shade against Mr. Brown, he’s managed to turn McLaren Racing around from the brink of death to a title contender in Formula One in just a handful of years, so he might know a thing or two about funding and managing a successful motorsport concern.

Details about the car are a bit thin on the ground right now, but we know the basics. The partnership will be known as McLaren United AS and will be overseen by current Jaguar Formula E championship-winning team boss James Barclay. McLaren will build its own chassis in-house, which will be powered by a unique design twin-turbo V6 engine built by Autotecnica Motori, so don’t expect the high-rpm V12 wail of that 1995 McLaren F1. It’s possible to race in the Hypercar category without a hybrid system, but McLaren would be silly to try it, so expect it to have one. The sheet will be pulled off of a design mockup of the car at 10AM Central European Time on Saturday ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, though McLaren expects to have a car beginning on-track testing by the first quarter of 2026. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that the car will be orange, the headlights will evolve some corporate signature style little swoops, and maybe there will be some cool throwback McLaren F1 design cues. We’ll have to wait and see. 

Is it smart for McLaren to drop its Formula E program in order to run at Le Mans? It’s difficult to say. I would wager its odds of winning in Hypercar are even lower than they would be in Formula E, and it’ll cost quite a lot more money to develop a new car, but hopefully it pays off for Zak and the squad.