There were plenty of reasons for McLaren to celebrate, having been crowned World Constructors\u2019 Champions for the second straight year while Lando Norris won his first drivers\u2019 title.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Piastri, meanwhile, had the best season of his young Formula 1 career and while disappointed to miss out on the individual accolade given he led the standings until early September, there is nothing but optimism for his future in the sport. <\/p>\n
In fact, Brown told the audience at the end of season celebration that he \u201ccouldn\u2019t dream of having a better line-up on and off the track\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo fastest guys in the world and nicest. That\u2019s the McLaren way. Proper racers like us, which stands for how we race. You guys are almost a unicorn combo,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
That was about the end of the usual comments you would expect from Brown, however, because outside of that it seemed no-one was safe from being slegded by the McLaren supremo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen again, maybe we\u2019ll be up here next year saying f*** that guy,\u201d he laughed. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnyways. Won\u2019t come to that. Both drivers love me, idolise me, and call me \u2018Big Daddy\u2019 behind my back.<\/p>\n
\u201cReality is they\u2019ll mess with me, but they won\u2019t mess with Andrea (Stella) \u2018cause, deep down inside, they\u2019re scared s***less of Andrea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Could ‘Favouritism’ force Piastri move? | 09:51<\/p>\n
It set the tone for a hilarious speech from Brown, with a number of moments going viral including the one where he referenced Piastri\u2019s split from Alpine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took big risks on both of you, and don\u2019t pretend you had better options,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou (Piastri) had f***ing Alpine and you (Norris) had to be faster than Stoffel Vandoorne,\u201d added Brown, referencing the former McLaren driver who was replaced by Norris in 2018.<\/p>\n
Piastri also took to the microphone during the evening to thank the entire team for its \u201chard work\u201d and while he isn\u2019t usually the type to go too off-script, he did hilariously reference the drama which saw both he and teammate Norris disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think only the people in this room know all of the emotions that went into this year,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot just the stats. All the hard work, the pride, the disappointment at times, the frustration, the intensity. What else is there? The determination we had, the relentlessness, and I think the enjoyment and the happiness that\u2019s come from this season. So, thank you very much for all of that.<\/p>\n
\u201c… I think this year\u2019s been pretty tiring at points. And I think it\u2019s worn us pretty thin \u2026 not quite as thin as our planks in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can laugh about it now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren CEO Zak Brown delivered plenty of highlights, including a not-so-subtle swipe at Oscar Piastri\u2019s former team Alpine,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-351028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351028","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=351028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}