Zak Brown would rather Verstappen win title than play favourites at McLaren

Zak Brown has suggested that he would rather Max Verstappen won the F1 drivers' title this year than his two drivers fall out and cause damage for future years.

McLaren Racing CEO Brown pointed to the destruction caused by Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso's championship battle while both driving for McLaren in 2007, with neither driver winning the title, and the Spaniard leaving the team after just a single season.

Fast forward to 2025, and McLaren have talented young superstars Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both going for the title with four race weekends remaining, with Norris currently leading his Australian team-mate by a single point.

But they have company in four-time world champion Verstappen, who is looming behind them, just 36 points behind Norris and in sublime form.

It has led to suggestions that McLaren should favour one of their drivers and go all out to try and make sure that it is one of their own who gets their hands on the trophy, but Brown has refused to budge, allowing the two youngsters to race each other hard to try and achieve their dreams of becoming a world champion.

Asked what he would do if Verstappen ended up winning the title over his two drivers, Brown told the Beyond the Grid podcast: "I’d shake his hand and say ‘job well done’. I want to make sure if we don’t win, he beats us, we don’t beat ourselves. That’s important. And we’re well aware of 2007, two drivers tied on points.

"We’ve got two drivers who want to win the world championship, we’re playing offence we’re not playing defence. And I’d rather we did the best we can on our drivers tied on points and the other guy beat us by one, than the alternative.

"That is telling one of our drivers now, when they are one point away from each other, ‘I know you have a dream to win the world championship but we flipped a coin and you don’t get to do it this year'.

"Forget it, that’s not how we go racing. The best way to win the constructors' is to finish first and second in the championship, the best way to win the drivers' championship is to have two drivers going for the drivers' championship.

"In the event 2007 happens again I’d rather have that outcome than all the other outcomes by playing favourites. We won’t do it, we’re racers and we’re going racing."

2025 title battle played out in good spirits

There have been very few flashpoints between Norris and Piastri this year, despite their mightily close championship battle, and McLaren have got to be given credit for that.

Certainly previous inter-team championship fights have not been so good-natured, think of Hamilton v Alonso at McLaren, Ayrton Senna v Alain Prost also at McLaren, or more recently Hamilton v Nico Rosberg at Mercedes.

With four race weekends remaining, however, there's every chance that the gloves are now off for the two McLaren drivers, and they will be going all out to try and secure their maiden world championship title.

McLaren have already wrapped up the constructors' title, so there is less pressure on the drivers to play the team game, but still expect McLaren to ensure the two stars are getting an equal shot at the title.

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