McLaren CEO Zak Brown has insisted the team is not distracted by talk of clinching the constructors’ championship at the Formula 1 season finale in Abu Dhabi.
McLaren has a 21-point lead over Ferrari in the standings, and with both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the front row of the grid while Charles Leclerc’s 10-place grid penalty and qualifying difficulties mean a back of the grid start for Ferrari, Brown could be forgiven for feeling overconfident.
However, he has not worked out the permutations that would see his team crowned as the champions – but has nonetheless sought some advice from his NHL-playing friends and Super Bowl champion Michael Strahan for some assurance.
“We’re trying to do what got us here this weekend and not race differently. Not to think about the championship,” said Brown.
“There’s not a lap where I am calculating the championship [standings] ‘he’s in that position. He’s in that position. Where are we?’
“I’d be lying if I said it’s pretty stressful. The team’s relaxed.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of other athletes that have been in this situation. Mark Messier [six-time Stanley Cup Champion]. Michael Strahan [who won the Super Bowl with the New York Giants in 2007/08]. Anže Kopitar [Slovenian professional ice hockey centre and captain of the Los Angeles Kings] and they’re all like, ‘if you’re not nervous, you’re lying’. So of course, there’s adrenaline and nervousness.”
Zak Brown, CEO McLaren Racing
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Brown admitted that if the team was to blow its lead in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, then it would be “soul crushing”, but speaking ahead of qualifying he said if they do indeed miss out, then they need to figure out why – and quickly.
He added: “Of course, we’ll be massively disappointed not to win it, but I think we’re going to have to – if that unfortunately happens – we need to shift quickly to look at what we’ve done this year and where we’ve come from.
“We’ve come from the brink of insolvency to five races wins, second most amount of podiums consecutively in the history of McLaren, gone down to the last race against Ferrari, beat Red Bull and Mercedes.
“So if you asked me, at the beginning of ’23 you finished second in the championship, won five races, 14 podiums in a row, I would have bitten your hand off.
“So I just think, of course, we’ll be disappointed, but we’ll need to quickly shift to just reflecting on what we have accomplished, and we got to be pretty damn proud.”
McLaren has faced criticism this term for not prioritising Norris’s push for the drivers’ championship over Piastri.
Two scenarios in particular came at the Hungarian GP when Norris was instructed to hand the win over, while at the Italian GP in Monza where Piastri made an opening-lap overtake on Norris, which saw the Briton fall further down the order.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren F1 Team, pole man Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team, congratulate each other in Parc Ferme
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
But Brown said that despite a detailed look into the campaign, he would not be pointing the blame at any such incident.
“You can go back and look at so many different points throughout the year where we’ve left points on the table,” he explained.
“You can also look at times we’ve benefited. And I think sport is a 24-race season. We all have a natural habit of like the last play is the play that blew it for the season, when in reality, that was one of 20.
“So if we don’t win it, and we lose it by X points, I’m not going to point to any one thing. It’s just how it goes.
“We see that in sport all the time that that kick was missed in that game, well, it was missed 10 other times as well, and it counted the same, just the last one that you remember.”
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