{"id":547246,"date":"2026-03-19T18:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/547246\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T18:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:02:09","slug":"mclaren-boss-zak-brown-expects-reigning-champions-to-win-again-sooner-rather-than-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/547246\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren boss Zak Brown expects reigning champions to win again \u2018sooner rather than later\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zak Brown is adamant that McLaren will be winning Grands Prix again \u201csooner rather than later\u201d after two tricky weekends in Australia and China to kick off their season.<\/p>\n

McLaren<\/a> returned to the top of the F1 pecking order last year by winning both the Drivers\u2019 and Teams\u2019 Championships \u2013 the Woking outfit\u2019s first title double since 1998.<\/p>\n

However, they have faced some early challenges under all-new regulations for 2026, with rivals Mercedes<\/a> and Ferrari<\/a> holding a pace advantage, and both Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a> failing to start in Shanghai last time out amid technical problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking as part of a post-race debrief in front of staff at McLaren\u2019s factory, CEO Brown pointed to the positives and indicated that better times are on the horizon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got the two best drivers in the world, we\u2019ve got the best racing team in the world, we\u2019ve got the best culture in a racing team, so let\u2019s just get on with it, go to Japan, race these cars \u2013 we\u2019ll all continue to do what we do,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to when we win races. I guarantee you when we win our next race, which will be sooner rather than later, we\u2019re not going to be thinking about speed traces or batteries or anything, we\u2019re going to be, \u2018We\u2019re winning Grand Prix races\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaren\u2019s double \u2018did not start\u2019 in China came after Piastri\u2019s crash on his way to the grid in Australia, meaning the team have scored just 18 points up to now and sit a distant third in the Teams\u2019 Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before Brown\u2019s rallying call, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella gave an honest assessment of the situation, while also pointing to the valuable lessons that have been taken from the first two rounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most detrimental aspect of not being able to participate is the points in the championship,\u201d said Stella. \u201cWhile at the moment Mercedes seem to be in their own category, and we are a little closer to Ferrari, we obviously race with the ambition to compete for important results.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just losing ground. These points could have been important at the end of the season. So, the most important shortcoming of what happened [in China] is not scoring the points.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also quite regrettable and disappointing for our fans and for our partners from a commercial and a technical point of view. So, there\u2019s obviously several downsides \u2013 and every lap is important in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, I think we are learning quite rapidly. With what we have learned in Australia, in the Sprint [in China], we think we are actually in a good position now, especially in terms of exploiting the power unit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zak Brown is adamant that McLaren will be winning Grands Prix again \u201csooner rather than later\u201d after two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-547246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}