{"id":296035,"date":"2025-11-20T01:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T01:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/296035\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T01:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T01:54:09","slug":"zak-brown-claims-red-bull-are-afraid-of-max-verstappen-in-fresh-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/296035\/","title":{"rendered":"Zak Brown claims Red Bull are \u201cafraid\u201d of Max Verstappen in fresh attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren boss Zak Brown has launched a fresh attack on Max Verstappen and Red Bull in his new book.<\/p>\n

Writing in Seven Tenths of a Second, Brown has suggested that Red Bull are \u201cafraid\u201d of the four-time world champion.<\/p>\n

Brown used the example of Red Bull overlooking Carlos Sainz<\/a> as a potential teammate last year as proof that the team is solely built around Verstappen \u2014 and keeping him happy.<\/p>\n

Verstappen remains in F1 title contention ahead of this weekend\u2019s Las Vegas Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

With three rounds to go, Verstappen is 49 points behind McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Verstappen will need to end the season with three consecutive grand prix wins to have a realistic shot at the title.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Norris can afford to finish second to Oscar\u00a0Piastri <\/a>in the remaining rounds to secure the championship.<\/p>\n

Brown, who has dominated media headlines over the past week with various interviews as he promotes his new book, wrote about how Red Bull are \u201csubservient\u201d to Verstappen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other example is Max Verstappen\u2019s rule at Red Bull. I say \u2018rule\u2019 on purpose,\u201d Brown wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, way before Christian Horner is fired in the middle of the 2025 season, it actually feels like Max is running the team.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEveryone seems to be subservient to him. Everyone seems to be afraid of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe car is tailored to Max, to a point where it seems difficult for anyone else to drive it effectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed Bull tend not to choose a second driver who will pose any threat to Max, otherwise Carlos Sainz would have been an obvious choice [for 2025].\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Bull \u201cterrified\u201d of losing Verstappen<\/p>\n

Even though Red Bull have been unable to give Verstappen a car capable of beating McLaren consistently, he has committed his future to the team for 2026.<\/p>\n

Verstappen was heavily linked with a switch to Mercedes for 2026 amid Red Bull\u2019s poor form.<\/p>\n

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\"Max <\/p>\n

Max Verstappen, Red Bull<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0XPB Images<\/p>\n

Christian Horner\u2019s exit in the summer led to Verstappen publicly saying he would remain at Red Bull next year.<\/p>\n

Naturally, the rumour mill will once again go into overdrive next year if Red Bull struggle with the new regulations as they run their own engine for the first time.<\/p>\n

Brown believes Red Bull favouring Verstappen is solely down to being scared of losing him, leading to them becoming a \u201cone-man team\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMax is a brilliant driver and they are terrified of losing him, and the way they have chosen to do that is to keep him happy above all else,\u201d Brown added.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf that means becoming a one-man team, a driver\u2019s own little empire, they are willing to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not how I want to lead at McLaren. And to be fair to Ron [Dennis] and Mansour [Ojjeh], who ran McLaren for so long, that\u2019s not the way they wanted to do things either.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat kind of unfairness, that stifling of competition, is not part of our company ethos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren boss Zak Brown has launched a fresh attack on Max Verstappen and Red Bull in his new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,825,913,806,805,803,804,946,85],"class_list":["post-296035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296035","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=296035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}