Zak Brown ignites a fiery debate on Red Bull’s fear of losing Max Verstappen amid ongoing controversies.
It’s a new stage in the war of words between McLaren F1 and Red Bull!
Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing, added fuel to the fire before the Hungarian Grand Prix. The topic remains the same: the clash between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen received a 10-second penalty for the incident… but was vehemently supported by his team.
In response, Andrea Stella accused Christian Horner, his counterpart at Red Bull, of lacking integrity (see our article).
Why such staunch support for Verstappen, against all odds?
For Zak Brown, it’s clear: Red Bull does not want to displease Max Verstappen… who is well-known to be courted by Mercedes F1 for next year!
“It seems that Red Bull is afraid of Max,” Zak Brown tells The Independent.
“We are very honest with our drivers. If no one tells him (Max Verstappen) that what he did was not according to the rules, why would he think otherwise?”
“But for Christian to come on the radio and outright dismiss the issue onto Lando – who are we kidding? Everyone saw it. The rules are very clear: you must leave the width of a car. Max did not do that. Why should he say anything? It seemed wholly inappropriate.”
This is not the first time Zak Brown has dealt with Christian Horner: when Red Bull exceeded the capped budget amount, the leader of McLaren F1 called it outright cheating…
Is there a personal feud between Zak Brown and Christian Horner?
“I only react to things when I think they are not right.”
“I speak up about issues. It seems I have more issues with Christian, more than with others, because he says and does things that I find wrong.”
“We were not competing with them during the capped budget episode… I simply felt that the integrity of the capped budgets was crucial for the success of Formula 1 and that if it was not taken seriously, the sport would suffer forever.”
“I was trying to protect the integrity of the sport and they did not take it seriously. That’s why I spoke up.”
“When they exceeded the capped budgets… It was a bunch of excuses, an attempt at minimization, almost an insult to the rest of us: it was for sandwiches, I have to feed my team like everyone else, etc…”
“It was an attempt to turn a blind eye. It had to be denounced.”
Zak Brown thinks the Horner affair will destabilize Red Bull… and might even force Max to leave.
Another issue Zak Brown has taken up against Christian Horner is the Horner affair itself.
The American expressed disappointment with the results of Red Bull’s internal investigation and stated that the affair would harm F1 in general.
For Zak Brown, the Horner affair will also affect the performance of Milton Keynes up to 2026 and the new regulations. He even implies that all this might push Max Verstappen to leave!
“The turbulence will have more of a medium to long-term impact.”
“Adrian Newey… the 2024 car was made last year, what they are driving now was built when everything was fine.”
“It’s more 2026 that will be disrupted, when you have a new engine coming in, and then on the driver front… that’s where you might see the lack of stability that seems to be there start to show a bit.”
Zak Brown nearly predicts a civil war tomorrow at Red Bull!
“Victory keeps things together, and if it becomes more difficult for them, that’s when you might see fractures in the various relationships within that camp.”
Can McLaren F1 catch up with Red Bull?
But while he talks a lot about Red Bull, Zak Brown certainly hasn’t forgotten about McLaren F1. It turns out that the British team has become as fast as Red Bull since the new Miami package.
The title will be tough given the early delays… But next year, in a period of regulation stability, Zak Brown has high hopes for his team.
“Next year could be an epic season, couldn’t it? You could have four teams fighting for the championship.”
Zak Brown doesn’t rule out a surprise from Aston Martin F1 for next year either…
“And it would be naive to count out someone who isn’t in the current top four, because we see how quickly things can change.”
“Everyone has very similar technology, so there’s no reason why others can’t do what we did last year.”
Since arriving at McLaren F1, Zak Brown has transformed the corporate culture: goodbye to Ron Dennis’s blame culture, hello to kindness… and it’s clearly working.
“It’s night and day. Most of the people are the same, but the culture is radically different.”
“The environment was quite toxic, there was not much trust or belief. Everything was going very wrong. When I started, people were guilty until proven innocent. It was damaging to the culture.”
“What has changed is mutual trust. There’s a big cultural shift in not creating conspiracy theories out of nothing. Andrea has done a remarkable job in setting a clear direction and leading the team to improve gradually every day.”
“Learning from mistakes, accepting them, rather than blaming someone else.”
Let’s finish with a crucial question: Can McLaren F1, yes or no, make up the 78-point deficit to Red Bull in the constructors’ standings by the end of the year?
“We have been very close recently (to Red Bull). Lando is a very nice guy, but make no mistake about who he is when he puts his visor down.”
“In Austria, the victory was ours. We were close to catching Max, but we ran out of time. Sometimes that’s how the strategy plays out. But I think once we secure a few more wins, it will be easier to seal those victories.”
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Zak Strikes: Horner Budget Caps Max’s Future! Zak Strikes: Horner Budget Caps Max’s Future!
