{"id":265462,"date":"2025-11-06T01:17:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T01:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/265462\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T01:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T01:17:12","slug":"f1-news-zak-brown-says-mclaren-would-rather-lose-the-championship-than-favour-a-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/265462\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news: Zak Brown says McLaren would rather lose the championship than favour a driver"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"McLaren
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tZak Brown says he would rather lose to Max Verstappen than favour either of his drivers in the 2025 championship. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n

Speaking on F1\u2019s Beyond the Grid podcast, Brown made clear that McLaren will not resort to team orders in the closing stages of the season, even with just one point separating Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri heading into the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

\u201cI shake his hand and say, job well done,\u201d Brown said when asked what his reaction would be if Verstappen ultimately beat McLaren to the title.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure if we don\u2019t win, he beats us. We don\u2019t beat ourselves. That\u2019s important. We\u2019re well aware of 2007. Two drivers tie on points, one gets in the front.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you know, we\u2019ve got two drivers who want to win the world championship. We\u2019re playing offence. We\u2019re not playing defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019d rather go, we did the best we can on our drivers tied in points and the other beat us by one, than the alternative which is telling one of our drivers right now, when they\u2019re one point away from each other, \u2018I know you have a dream to win the world championship but we flipped the coin and you don\u2019t get to do it this year\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cForget it. That\u2019s not how we go racing. In the event that 2007 happens again, I\u2019d rather have that outcome than all the other outcomes by playing favourites. We won\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaren heads into the final four rounds leading both championships, but Verstappen\u2019s recent resurgence has cut deeply into its advantage.<\/p>\n

Brown and team principal Andrea Stella have consistently said the team will not impose team orders while both drivers remain in contention.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Brown told The Race that McLaren was fully aware of the risks in giving Norris and Piastri equal freedom to fight<\/a> \u2014 a scenario reminiscent of the infamous 2007 Hamilton\u2013Alonso rivalry, when both drivers lost the championship to Kimi Raikkonen by a single point in the final round.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognise the consequences of that could be 2007,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Brown warns McLaren title fight could echo 2007 drama<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got two drivers that tie and lose to Kimi by a point. We could have won that drivers\u2019 championship, but who do you pick? And then you run the risk of the guy you don\u2019t pick, he\u2019s out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that there is \u201cnothing in their contract that gives one priority over the other\u201d and warned that the downside of favouring one would likely be \u201cone then wants to leave, which is exactly what happened at the end of \u201907 [anyway].\u201d<\/p>\n

For Stella, maintaining equal treatment is central to McLaren\u2019s philosophy \u2014 and essential to keeping harmony inside the garage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Max is the champion at the end of the year, for us, the important thing is that we can say we have done our best and we have done our best according to the way we go racing,\u201d he said on the podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if Max wins this year, we say we\u2019re going to win next year, we\u2019re going to be there and we are going to be united as we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also rejected any notion that the team might privately lean toward one driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when you are in my role, it\u2019s like when you have two sons and somebody says, \u2018Which one is your preferred son?\u2019 Yeah, but they are my two sons, how can you say which one is the preferred one?\u201d Stella said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes when I hear or read some comments of this kind, I find them really very superficial and just like, I think sometimes people don\u2019t really understand what it means to have two drivers that are with you together in this journey in Formula 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel very grateful to both, in fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zak Brown says he would rather lose to Max Verstappen than favour either of his drivers in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[13273,64,63,817,813,816,913,85,9657],"class_list":["post-265462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-andrea-stella","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mclaren","tag-sports","tag-zak-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}