As Zak Brown heads for Detroit this weekend to explore potential options for running a full-time McLaren entry in IndyCar next year, he will do so with two main criteria in mind.
"Firstly, our number one priority is and always will be Formula One," McLaren's executive director said, "so any time we review another racing activity our first criteria is that it does not compromise our Formula One efforts in any shape or form.
"Then beyond that for us to consider another form of motorsport, in no particular order as they are all equally important, we have to make sure we are competitive and it fits our brand and commercially viable and what our partners want."
McLaren fielded Fernando Alonso at last year's Indy 500 after teaming up with IndyCar team Andretti Autosport and, according to a report in Racer, Brown is travelling to Detroit to discuss the potential for a full season in the series. Further details are not clear at this stage, but the report suggests a one-car entry in cooperation with an existing team could be on the cards as early as 2019.
"If you look at IndyCar, North America is an important market place for us in our automotive business and our applied technology business, and for our commercial partners it is something that, like winning the Indy 500 twice, we have history there. McLaren is a group of racers and we like to race as often as possible and we can be competitive."
The news follows public statements by Brown that his team would also consider returning to Le Mans, which it last raced at in 1998. The World Endurance Championship is currently discussing a new set of regulations for 2020 that would reduce costs and turn the existing LMP1 category into a GT Prototype class. Brown said the current direction of the discussions appeal to McLaren.
"The same can be said for World Endurance and Le Mans. We have this great automotive business and last time we went to Le Mans we won. We like to race what we produce so both of those are, within the rules, changing on World Endurance going from the budgets that they've been to the budgets that they are suggesting to go to.
"The formula and look and feel of the car, we feel it is attractive, so we are monitoring that closely. In IndyCar, with the reasons I mentioned before, we find it attractive and could be a good fit within our motorsport portfolio so that too is under review."