As Formula One heads into its final grand prix in the sunshine of Abu Dhabi, a cold, rain-sodden, windy night envelops the McLaren Technology Centre. It heralds the beginning of a winter during which the team face one of their toughest challenges. After a season of shattered hopes and disappointment left McLaren reeling, they have held their hands up to their failings in the hope of emerging next year on the road to recovery. A journey no one doubts will be long and hard.

McLaren have already put in some miles. This year’s Belgian Grand Prix marked the 50th anniversary of the team’s first win, by founder Bruce McLaren at Spa in 1968. It was a celebratory milestone in a season offering precious little pleasure.

At the MTC, the chief executive, Zak Brown, is refreshingly blunt in identifying what has been lacking in 2018. “Leadership, communication, clarity, clear goal-setting,” he says. “It was the way we were operating, so ultimately what we produced was technically a very poor race car.”

No one at the team needs reminding of McLaren’s pedigree in producing exceptional racing cars. Below Brown’s office they sit in gleaming ranks, reflecting some phenomenal success. When McLaren began with the M2B in 1966 at Monaco, his team consisted of six people, including himself and his wife. Since then they have become second only to Ferrari as the most successful team in the sport with 182 victories, 12 drivers’ championships and eight constructors’ titles.

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Brown is all too aware of the weight that comes with such history. “I do feel an immense responsibility to carry the McLaren brand,” he says. “I absolutely understand the gravity of the task, it is a privilege and an honour.”

The team now number 800 but they are enduring the worst spell in their long history. Their last drivers’ title was Lewis Hamilton’s in 2008 and they have not won a constructors’ since 1998. They have not won a race since Brazil in 2012 and have not had a podium since 2014.

The decline was meant to have been arrested this season. However, the optimism of having the Renault engine they wanted after struggling for three years with Honda, disappeared within a handful of grands prix. Their car proved woefully poor, with Fernando Alonso describing it as missing performance and pace. His fifth at the first race in Australia remains their best result and hopes of challenging for podiums were shattered. They are sixth in the constructors’ championship, but should be seventh, flattered a place by Force India’s points deduction.

Brown, who has been in charge since 2017, was unequivocal about what a blow this year has proved. “We have been immensely frustrated,” he says. “As a team we are frustrated, disappointed. We have been angry because we all want to win.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zak Brown says a plan is in place to make McLaren competitive again. Photograph: Clive Mason/Getty Images

A former professional driver, who then proved successful as a businessman in founding the motorsport marketing company, JMI, Brown knew the challenge he had accepted. “I am highly motivated, I love my job at McLaren and am a fighter,” he says. ‘I knew I was getting myself into a position in that I was coming into a team that was in decline. I knew what I was getting into.”

At the start of the season after grand claims for their chassis in 2017, he acknowledged all eyes would be on his team and that F1 left nowhere to hide. So it has proved. Their failings played out all too publicly across 20 races, the culmination of a lack of consistent leadership believes Brown. “McLaren has been in a state of constant transition for the last five years,” he says. “That lack of stability has created the decline.”

Turning it around is the focus of everyone and it has required facing up to hard truths. “We have a clear structure, goals, everyone is working unbelievably hard and we are not going to make the mistakes we made before,” he says.

One key factor being the “honesty” members of the team had to display to make a fundamental change in culture. “Not lying but a lack of being honest with yourself,” he says. “No one wanted to tackle the issues or own the issues. Too many grey areas, too many cooks. Now there is a real honesty amongst all of us, and collaboration and teamwork going that we have to pull though this. We are working really well together.”

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Next season will be a fresh start with two new drivers, Carlos Sainz and Britain’s Lando Norris making his F1 debut, backed by new appointments this year. They have brought back Pat Fry as the engineering director eight years after he left for Ferrari. He is working alongside the new sporting director, Gil de Ferran, a former CART champion and Indy 500 winner. Toro Rosso’s James Key has been appointed as the technical director but he cannot take up the role until 2019. His influence will not be felt on the new car but Brown makes it clear McLaren are now playing a long game.

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“We’re on a journey to recovery and we do not have everything complete, we have a plan,” he says. He rightly identifies that the order at the front is unlikely to change over the next two years. He is strongly in favour of the proposed budget cap that will begin in 2021 but only gradually come into play, meaning 2023 before its effects will really be seen. “This is a five-year journey we are on to get back to being competitive. We have to do that ourselves,” he says.

There are no excuses being made in the gleaming white palace of the MTC. Just the acknowledgment of a long winter ahead. “While we are struggling as we are it’s kind of like having a dark cloud over the building,” Brown says. “Everyone here wants to win, so the biggest jump in morale we can have is back to being competitive.”