Mike Flewitt

CEO, MCLAREN AUTOMOTIVE

- Alisa Priddle

McLaren, founded in 1963, was a motorsport company until 2011, when it launched its first mass-produced car, the MP4-12C. (We’ll refer to the F1 supercar of the ’90s as more of a bespoke vanity project.) Under CEO Mike Flewitt—who spent much of his career at Ford and had stints at Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and others before joining McLaren in 2012—the company has a clear product and business plan. It has gone from its first somewhat muddled launch to strong products, three years of profits, continued growth, and a sense of stability with sales in 30 markets.

You are still working on your Track 22 business plan? The plan outlined where we were going over the next seven years. The world needed to know what McLaren is doing. Each new car is a surprise because we haven’t got this history behind us. We said we would launch 15 new cars by 2022; it was called Track 22 because initially it went from 2015 to 2022.

Is Senna GTR one of the 15 cars? No, not the GTR, but we count a spider variant, so when we announced the 570S Spider last year, that was the second car. The 720S was the first. Senna is the third.