After three seasons, McLaren has elected to pull the plug on its Formula E project, citing the need to focus its resources on its incoming Hypercar project for 2027's World Endurance Championship. Thus, the team is set to occupy its fourth guise having started out as HWA Racelab in the 2018-19 season, effectively a proxy Mercedes entry before the German marque launched its full entry for the following season.
When Mercedes elected not to continue onto Gen3 as a manufacturer, after winning both drivers' and teams' titles back-to-back in 2020-21 and 2021-22, team principal Ian James was put in touch with Zak Brown, who had been keen to grow McLaren's influence across motorsport after taking over as CEO in 2017. Under Brown, McLaren had expanded back into IndyCar and joined the Extreme E championship; adding the team's storied name to the Formula E grid thus made sense, given it was taking over the championship's most successful team. McLaren had, tangentially, been involved before as a battery supplier for the Gen2 cars in partnership with Atieva, but this deal had come to an end for Gen3.
