McLaren Racing
“Can a legacy motorsport team operate with the financial agility of a modern global fintech-enabled business?”
Founded1963
HQWoking, Surrey, United Kingdom
FoundersBruce McLaren
IndustryMotorsport / Professional Sports Team
The story
McLaren Racing is the motorsport arm of the McLaren Group, a British F1 team founded in 1963 by Bruce McLaren. While not a fintech, McLaren has invested heavily in modernizing its finance function under CFO Laura Bowden — adopting Workday for financial planning (2023) and Airwallex for global cross-border treasury and supplier payments (2024). The 2026 naming-rights partnership with Mastercard further deepens its embedded finance footprint, though that relationship is primarily a commercial sponsorship rather than a technical integration.
Last 12 months
2024-02
Product timeline
1963
Bruce McLaren founds McLaren Racing· founding
2020
£100m short-term debt facility provided by National Bank of Bahrain to support liquidity during COVID· financing
2023
Workday becomes Official Partner; McLaren adopts Workday Adaptive Planning for financial planning· partnership
2024
Airwallex becomes Official Partner; modernizes cross-border payments and treasury operations· partnership
2024
Mastercard joins as major sponsor of McLaren F1 Team· partnership
2026
Mastercard becomes Official Naming Partner — team rebrands to McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team· partnership
The stack
Payments / PSP
Banking / BaaS
Payroll
FX & payouts
Accounting
Accounting gap: none