McLaren CEO Zak Brown has insisted that the team does not feel “intimidated” by its two drivers fighting for a maiden F1 title, and has claimed no “tension” is being felt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oscar Piastri heads into the final 10 grands prix with a narrow nine-point advantage over team-mate Lando Norris, whilst Max Verstappen in third is a sizeable 97 points adrift.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Verstappen requires a miracle to claim a fifth consecutive world championship, with the general expectation being that it is now between the two McLaren drivers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No McLaren driver has won the drivers’ title since Lewis Hamilton in 2008, whilst it looks set to comfortably defend its constructors’ crown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Woking-based outfit boasts a staggering 299-point lead over Ferrari and can seal the title as soon as Azerbaijan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the constructors’ championship effectively sealed, most expect the tension to rise between Piastri and Norris as the season reaches its climax.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For both drivers, the current campaign could represent their only opportunity to secure an F1 drivers’ title, given the uncertainty surrounding the new power unit regulations next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brown is adament McLaren is enjoying the fight between its drivers and is not “concerned” of things getting out of hand.<\/p>\n
“We enjoy it,” Brown told Sky F1 in Hungary. “We’re racers, so to see them battling it out like we’ve seen now at a handful of races, it’s exciting for us, we’re not doing anything differently.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We don’t feel any tension rising. We know, obviously there’s a lot at stake, but it’s all very positive, and we’re enjoying it. We’re not intimidated or concerned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We know it’s going to be tough, but we’ve got a great relationship with both drivers, very open and transparent, so I see no reason why they can’t have an epic fight to the finish. May, the best driver win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Hopefully it’s between the two of them. I think there’s still enough racing to not think it’s just the two of them in the race. Hopefully, after another race or two, that will be the case, but still a lot of racing left.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren CEO Zak Brown has insisted that the team does not feel “intimidated” by its two drivers fighting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-68740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68740","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=68740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}