McLaren Racing has closed an internal ownership restructure that transfers 49% of the F1 team from Mumtalakat, Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund, to MSP Sports Capital, the New York-based firm that backed Zak Brown's 2020 turnaround. The move values McLaren Racing at approximately $2.4 billion and ends the Bahraini government's majority control after a decade of underwriting losses that reached $185 million in 2019 alone.

Mumtalakat retains a minority stake but no longer holds board majority. MSP, which previously owned 15% after injecting $185 million in late 2020, now controls operational decisions and sits on all commercial committees. The fund is led by Jahm Najafi, a Phoenix Suns minority owner who spent two years watching Andrea Stella's engineering team finish P4, then P2 in the constructors' championship while revenue climbed from $210 million to $340 million. McLaren CEO Zak Brown keeps his seat and equity but now reports to a board where the Bahraini representative votes second.

The timing matters because the 2026 power unit regulations arrive in 18 months and McLaren has already committed $400 million to its new Woking wind tunnel, which goes live in Q3 2025. Teams that enter the next rule cycle without locked funding tend to finish mid-grid; teams with patient capital and stable leadership tend to hire the engineers who just watched their current employer hesitate. MSP's structure—permanent capital, no IRR hurry—gives McLaren room to chase Adrian Newey types without quarterly calls about cost-per-point.

The deal also follows a pattern. MSP's other holdings include the YES Network and a slice of Memphis basketball. The firm prefers cash-generating sports assets with brand value that exceeds win-loss record, and McLaren now prints $95 million in annual sponsorship revenue before a wheel turns. That number rises if the team finishes P2 again in 2025, and it rises faster if Brown can convert paddock chatter about a third U.S. race into a Miami-Austin-Vegas triptych that moves his orange cars from ESPN2 to ABC on Sunday mornings. Mumtalakat's exit suggests the Bahrainis believe the high-leverage growth phase is over and the next chapter is margin management, which sovereign funds dislike.

What matters now is how MSP deploys capital during the next 12 months. The team needs a technical director after James Key's departure and a decision on whether to extend Lando Norris past 2026 or let him test free agency at 26 years old with a constructor's title on his CV. MSP's track record says it will spend on the technical director and underpay Norris, which works if the car is quick and fails badly if it is not.

The broader F1 ownership market is watching because this is the first major restructure since Liberty Media's $8.5 billion MotoGP bid and Andretti's public rejection. McLaren's $2.4 billion valuation implies the grid's enterprise value now exceeds $20 billion, up from $8 billion in 2020. That makes every remaining founder-led or sovereign-backed team a natural sale candidate, and the buyers are funds like MSP that want recurring revenue, not trophy assets. Brown built the revenue engine; Najafi bought the factory. The next owner will buy the margins.