Zak Brown reveals FURY at McLaren driver interview article

Zak Brown, McLaren, Bahrain, 2024 — Photo: © IMAGO

IndyCar

Brown reveals FURY at McLaren driver interview article

AutoHebdo have since taken the piece offline

Chris Deeley

Sunday 21 July 2024 21:00

Zak Brown has hit out at a now-deleted article on a French magazine's website, which had claimed that a sponsor's withdrawal and other funding issues led to Theo Pourchaire's departure from his McLaren IndyCar seat.

The article was an interview with Pourchaire in AutoHebdo, who had complained about the manner of McLaren's communication about his racing seat, but had not made any claims about potential financial issues.

Brown, speaking to motorsport.com, did credit whoever at the magazine was responsible for getting what he called 'potentially a very damaging and inaccurate story' taken offline.

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Pourchaire also hit out at the article, calling it 'grossly inaccurate'. The Frenchman was a surprise late call-up for this weekend's Honda Indy Toyota race in Toronto when Alexander Rossi broke his hand in practice.

Theo Pourchaire has bounced around race seats

Brown: I was very angry about article

“I talked to Theo about it. His commentary was that it was not the interview that he gave, he gave his quotes and then the journalist wrote the story around that [was] kind of misleading – this is according to Theo because I didn't do the interview.

“[They] built the story around it, brought his quotes in, and it was factually very inaccurate. So, if you look at his quotes themselves, he thought he was going to Laguna, got the phone call, understood it, was disappointed – I get it, I would be too – but the reality is we did everything the contract said we could do.

“It was a tough decision, but you have to make tough decisions. But the [assertion] we've lost a major sponsor [was] totally inaccurate. We have financial challenges, totally inaccurate.

“I was very angry about that because the journalists never contacted us to give us a right of reply. To make statements like that, the way it kind of read was almost like it came out of Theo’s mouth. But when you then reread it, and speak with Theo, those weren't his quotes.

“I think it was very inaccurate information with his quotes blended in to make it look like this was a Theo’s story – at least that’s what is Theo’s told me. So I thought that was very poor journalism.”

McLaren Zak Brown Theo Pourchaire Alexander Rossi