McLaren Group CEO Zak Brown says he has hit his target for increasing sponsorship revenue and the team has brought in more new backers than any of its Formula 1 rivals.

However he admitted the team faces a significant shortfall in its budget for this season.

“Our performance hasn’t helped,” he told RaceFans in an exclusive interview. “And especially don’t forget this year you sell last year, so last year was one of the worst years,” he added. McLaren finished ninth in the constructors’ championship last year.

However Brown said he’s “hit my number” in terms of the amount of revenue he needed to bring in from sponsorship.

“I’ve hit what I said I would do. And then we’ve got to keep growing it. The car has got lots of space, it started with lots of space. The companies we’ve put on have been outstanding: Dell Technologies, Petrobras, being high-quality entities, and we’re keeping pushing.”

Brown said the extent of advertising on the car doesn’t necessarily reflect how lucrative the deals have been.

“There’s a perception that goes back 10, 20 years of stickers on the cars, which is that ‘We’ll equate the size of what the sticker on the car is to what we think the money is’. That just isn’t the case these days. And certainly not for us. Because the partnerships run a lot deeper than just straightforward a logo on the car.”

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“If you’re measuring off outward activation, if that sponsor’s primary objectives are something like a [business-to-business] or employees’ engagement, you’re not necessarily going to see that,” he explained.

“We don’t festoon the car with logos, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t have substantive, long-term partners onboard.”

Acquiring new sponsors in F1 is challenging for all teams and the sport’s promoters, said Brown.

“Fortunately we’ve got very, very committed shareholders who also understand Formula One hasn’t really announced a sponsor. They’ve done some media. We haven’t seen a new trackside partner.

“Ferrari’s done one deal. Mercedes has traded one deal. So I think fortunately our shareholders and myself know that it’s not going to… it just doesn’t happen.

“I know that’s my background and therefore everyone is expecting every inch of the car to be sold. The reality is we have done five deals, put aside Kimoa. I haven’t seen another team do more than two. So we are deliberating.”

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Don’t miss our exclusive, in-depth interview with Zak Brown in Dieter’s weekly column RacingLines later today on RaceFans.

2018 F1 season