Brown defends McLaren decisions: 'We wouldn't have lost the title in Monza'
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With three Grands Prix and a Sprint event to go, McLaren do lead in the constructors' standings, however, Lando Norris is now on the edge of missing out on the drivers' title. According to McLaren CEO, Zak Brown said that not only his team made mistakes, and even those errors are not the fault if the Woking-based team could eventually win neither title this year.
So far in 2024, 21 weekend were held in Formula One, with a McLaren driver winning on five occasions: Lando Norris claimed victory three times, while Oscar Piastri crossed the finish line in P1 twice. However, the team did also miss out at certain Grands Prix, where perhaps they should have won.
After a lot of disappointing years in the competition, did McLaren forget how to win? "Everyone makes mistakes. They used to be less visible because it wasn't about wins," Brown told Auto, Motor und Sport. "Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes also make mistakes, but that is forgotten because they won so much in between."
The McLaren CEO argues that they could have won at Silverstone (Lewis Hamilton), as well as "maybe" in Canada (Max Verstappen) and Monza (Charles Leclerc). "We are learning from our mistakes and we are a better team now than at the start of the season. I don't look back and worry about things we can no longer change. Instead, I say to the team: you can make mistakes, but please don't make them twice. It would have only really irritated me if the same thing had happened to us several times," he continued.
McLaren wants to end run without championships
The last time a McLaren won a title was in the 2008 season, when Lewis Hamilton earned for the first time in his career after getting past Timo Glock in Brazil. The team's last constructors' champion dates back to 1998. Yet Brown does not believe they miss if they were to only win one of the two this year. "No. Until Miami, we didn't have the car we have now. We lost a lot of points to Max and Red Bull. Of course I want to win at least one of the two titles. But the constructors' title will also be difficult," the CEO explained.
Indeed, since a few weeks, Ferrari have been getting their act together very well after the Italians experienced a difficult period earlier this season. "Ferrari looks very strong. They give me more headaches than Red Bull. Still, you can't write them off. Red Bull is an incredibly strong team. [Sergio] Perez has shown he can finish on the podium. He has something stuck in his head that is inhibiting him now. If he lets go of that, it will soon be close again," Brown also commented on Sergio Perez's recent performance.
"This battle will go on until the end. It doesn't look good in the drivers' championship. If we lose it, it will have happened at the start and not at Silverstone or Monza. And not because we swapped places between Lando and Oscar in Hungary," Brown concludes.
This article was written in collaboration with Corwin Kunst
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