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Zak Brown strikes again.
McLaren has sold Official Partner rights across McLaren Racing’s program to SharkNinja, which joins as an Official Partner of the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team, Arrow McLaren IndyCar, the McLaren Hypercar program in the World Endurance Championship, and McLaren’s F1 Academy entry.
SharkNinja will run content, fan engagement, and activations at selected Formula 1 race weekends, work with McLaren drivers and ambassadors, and join the McLaren Racing Accelerator Program, where engineers from both companies apply racing methods to future SharkNinja products.
That gives Brown one contract spanning four series and an engineering channel. It also gives SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas global F1 inventory, U.S. IndyCar weekends, Hypercar prestige, and Academy faces under one Official Partner roof.
SharkNinja reported USD $6.399 billion in full-year 2025 net sales, showing the size of the buyer Brown brought in. Barrocas tied McLaren’s performance culture to SharkNinja’s product iteration loop.
“McLaren is one of the most decorated teams in motorsport history, built on a legacy of innovation, technical excellence, and performance at the highest level,” said Barrocas. “That is a mindset we share at SharkNinja. We listen closely to consumers, move with speed, and keep iterating until we create solutions that positively impact people’s lives. We are proud to partner with McLaren and combine our strengths to advance
SharkNinja’s own release specifies branded trackside spaces, driver appearances, trophy experiences, and exclusive fan events at designated 2026 Formula 1 weekends, as well as storytelling with Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Mika Häkkinen, and F1 Academy drivers.
Business of Speed has covered how F1 partnerships now work as sales platforms, with the car supplying attention and the activation doing the commercial work. SharkNinja bought the multi-series platform Brown has spent years building.
Business of Speed covers the business, technology, and lifestyle of racing: Formula 1, IndyCar, IMSA, WEC, NASCAR, and more. From Vincenzo Landino, entrepreneur and creator, featured in Bloomberg, TBPN, Yahoo! Finance, Forbes, Adweek, and Front Office Sports. You can find us on Instagram, Substack, and LinkedIn.
