Brown happy for all but one rival: 'We like George, Hamilton's win was cool'
Zak Brown was clearly satisfied with Oscar Piastri taking pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix, but he was also complimentary of other frontrunner teams. The American praised both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton in Shanghai. All but one rival gets this treatment from him.
McLaren looked to be on course to claim the first row of the grid in Shanghai, similarly to how they did in Melbourne a weekend ago. This time, it was Piastri who claimed P1 for the Sunday, however, with his final lap, Russell and Mercedes managed to shoot up to second place in qualifying, separating the two Woking-based cars.
"That was an epic lap by George [Russell], I just said to Toto [Wolff], great to have three Mercedes[-powered cars] at the front. That was a big lap. Yes, I mean based on what we've seen, you kind of would have expected it to be Max or even the Ferraris, but cool to have George up there, we like George," the McLaren CEO told Sky Sports after the second session of the day.
Earlier on, it was Lewis Hamilton who managed to convert his sprint qualifying pole position in to Ferrari's first ever Sprint victory, since it was introduced back in 2021. "Very cool to see Lewis win. So if it's not one of our guys, Lewis in a Ferrari, former McLaren guy, he's always welcome at the McLaren family. We love racing Ferraris, so yes, to see Lewis win is pretty special, and he's qualified well, so he's certainly settling in quickly at Ferrari which we expected him to," Brown added, praising the seven-time world champion.
Brown's tone different with Red Bull
Out of McLaren's frontrunning rivals, therefore both Ferrari and Mercedes were ticked off the list. One team are missing however: Red Bull Racing. In an interview with The Telegraph that was released earlier this week, the CEO was less enthusiastic about Christian Horner, compared to 'having a talk with Toto' and 'we love racing Ferraris'. Brown explained there is 'no love lost there', and also predicted that Max Verstappen will leave the team already next season.
Want more Formula 1? Then follow GPblog on our various social media channels!
Russell is a super good qualifier. That is why he holds the record of the most consecutive times out qualifying his team mate in motor sports of 75-0 over a period of more than 4 years.
Is that really the best you've got Mech, nobody disputes that GR is Mr.Saturday but lets have a look at some records then, within your statement of records held between the two perhaps you can also include... Poles ? Fastest laps ? Podiums ? Wins ? Titles ? Granted you'll probably reply with "Yes but Lewis has been in F1much longer" which would in fact be a flawed comment when working out the percentages but I'll help out a little if I can, from 130 starts George has won 3 races !! Had 16 podiums !! 5 poles !! 8 fastest laps !! Oh and no titles, I think that trumps your comment, I haven't bothered including Lewis' results from his first 130 races but feel free
A far cry from having drive the fastest car in 99% of your career to being in a back of the grid Williams longer than necessary. Kinda misconstrues those stats a little.
Afternoon Retribution, yes I agree that my comment misconstrues the stats, more than a little in fact, Mech E likes to pour p1ss over anything to do with Lewis such is his dislike of him, I can assure you that if Lewis were to be fastest in every practice, fastest in every qually, starts from pole, sets the fastest lap of the race and leads flag to flag Mech E would find some sort of negative comment to make no matter how obscure, hence my 'unfair' response
I like Zak Brown, of course a fierce competitor but is also very modest and humble and even complimentary of Lewis who will be one of McLarens challengers, fair play to Zak
I wonder who is the most disliked current team principal amongst the others ?!! Thoughts ???
And also the most successful one. Built the team from group up, had rough patch in between due to weaker engine still managed to keep majority of team intact during that period, bet everything on Honda at their lowest and delivered back to back championships again.
Not sure if Horner holds that claim Divergent2, I think Ron Dennis can probably take that applause !! Could be wrong though ?
Popular on GPBlog
F1 Full Results | Japanese Grand Prix FP2: Piastri P1, Norris P2
F1 LIVE | Follow FP2 for the Japanese Grand Prix here
Mercedes breaks F1 rule ahead of Japanese Grand Prix weekend
