Brown and McLaren feel the heat: 'Trying to slow us down'

Zak Brown senses McLaren's rivals are trying to slow down the team with complaints about their flexible rear wing. The CEO of the Woking-based team was also keen to praise his team members who have engineered the part. In a statement on Thursday, the FIA confirmed that the McLaren car complies with the rules and regulations.

McLaren moved to the top of the Formula 1 Constructors' World Championship following Oscar Piastri's win in Baku. It looked like they would only take a small lead until Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz crashed when fighting for the podium places towards the end of the race. Perez's DNF meant that Red Bul lost a chunk of points and McLaren walked away with a 20-point lead.

Footage of the moving rear wing, which creates a mini-DRS effect without the system being activated, surfaced online. Red Bull and Ferrari also spotted the movement and raised questions about the rear wing. Christian Horner told Sky Sports that he believes a precedent has been set by the FIA's clearance. "We don't want to rush to design wings that deform like that. If it's deemed okay, then everybody will do the same," the Red Bull boss said.

Brown senses his rivals are trying to get Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to slow down with these questions. "I think it's great for the championship. We're running at the front. And so there will be things that are clearly working well on our race car. Everyone else is going to try and speed up and slow us down at the same time. Welcome to Formula One," Brown told Sky Sports.

"[Horner] is spot on. It's been passed by the FIA. These Formula 1 engineers are very clever. They've [Red Bull] certainly had some pretty awesome race cars the last decade and it's passed the test. Good on our team for coming up with something that is high performance. They're [FIA] fully aware of everything on our race car and they're comfortable. It's inevitable now that we're leading the championship that everyone will be looking at our car and going, 'I'm not sure I like that'. That's the nature of the game," Brown concluded.