Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nDespite having Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at his disposal, Brown never completely shut down the possibility of signing Verstappen, although he repeatedly maintained he was happy with his current driver pairing.<\/p>\n
Verstappen has a number of clauses in his contract and, while contracted until 2030, could opt out of his deal if Red Bull struggle to compete, leaving the door open for a blockbuster move.<\/p>\n
Four-time world champion Max Verstappen held talks with McLaren boss Zak Brown before recommitting to Red Bull.Source: AFP<\/p>\n
Brown has since spoken with Dutch publication De Telegraaf regarding his discussions with Verstappen and the four-time world champion\u2019s personality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to Max a couple of times last summer. Simply because I wanted to get to know him better,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I had to use one word to describe him now, it would be a word that wouldn\u2019t have occurred to me before those conversations.<\/p>\n
\u201cNamely: charming. I bet no one who doesn\u2019t know him well would describe him that way. But I\u2019m really impressed by him. A racer through and through.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis focus and the way he looks at motorsport from a driver\u2019s perspective I found very impressive.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see it in how involved Max is with the GT3 program and how technically proficient he is. Fernando had that too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris fears McLaren miles off pace | 01:36<\/p>\n
Brown admitted he would \u201clove to work with\u201d Verstappen one day in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe talks were more exploratory, to get to know each other better. Because you never know what the future will bring,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I came away much more impressed than I had expected, from an individual standpoint. I feel like: I can really go racing with this guy. Because I hate racing against him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe door is still wide open for Max. For 2028, 2029, or whatever year. I enjoyed getting to know him better and would love to work with him someday.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pressure will now be on Red Bull to produce a car capable of competing at the front as Verstappen chases a fifth F1 World Championship.<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s comments could also keep the pressure on Norris and Piastri to continue performing, with their boss making no secret of his admiration for Verstappen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren Formula 1 boss Zak Brown has dropped a bombshell regarding another team\u2019s superstar driver. Brown has said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-905624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905624","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=905624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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