McLaren have been famously bad at promoting young drivers over the years and Zak Brown has identified this as a major point for improvement.
McLaren had this regime long before Brown’s presence but
Stoffel Vandoorne was just the most recent victim joining the likes of
Sergio Perez, Heikki Kovalainen and
Kevin Magnussen amongst others to fail.
“We recognise that someone like Stoffel is an extremely good race car driver and for whatever reason, it didn’t work out.” Said Brown speaking to RaceFans.
“We take some responsibility for that and want to understand why this driver with such a great pedigree didn’t work out.
“We don’t want to replicate that, where we may have got that wrong or contributed to that lack of success.” Added Brown.
The next young star to make the step up is 19-year-old
Lando Norris who will team up with
Carlos Sainz in 2019, their youngest ever line up.
Brown revealed his right-hand man
Gil De Ferran has what it takes to help the drivers flourish.
“One of his many roles is effectively my right-hand man in all things McLaren Racing as sporting director.
“One of the things that I would recognise is I think we need some additional racers in the McLaren family.”