Zak Brown offers honest McLaren verdict in Red Bull ‘complete package’ assessment

Lando Norris and Max Verstappen

Zak Brown has hinted McLaren are not yet ready to challenge Red Bull for the F1 2024 World Championship, conceding that the “complete package” is required to win consistently in Formula 1.

Red Bull have established themselves as the dominant force of modern F1, with Max Verstappen winning 50 of the last 75 races en route to three consecutive World Championships.

McLaren ‘knocking on the door’ in F1 2024 bid to catch Red Bull

Having started the F1 2024 season with four wins – including three one-two finishes for Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez – from the first five races, Red Bull have seemed increasingly vulnerable over recent weeks.

Verstappen has won just two of the last four races, with McLaren‘s Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc triumphing in Miami and Monaco respectively.

Red Bull’s performance in Monaco, where the reigning World Champion could only manage sixth as Perez fell in Q1, prompted Verstappen’s father Jos to declare that the team’s “period of dominance has come to an end.”

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However, Verstappen silenced talk of a F1 2024 title fight with Ferrari and McLaren by winning the last race in Canada, extending his lead over Leclerc in the Drivers’ standings to 56 points.

McLaren have regularly been Red Bull’s most consistent threat since a series of upgrades brought the team back into contention at the halfway stage of F1 2023, with Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri registering six podiums between them – including the former’s Miami Grand Prix victory – so far this year.

Yet Brown has admitted that the team still need to bridge the gap to Red Bull in several areas before McLaren can confidently challenge for the title.

He told theScore: “If you look at Red Bull the last few years and Mercedes before that, typically the teams that win the championship are the best at everything, not most things.

“If you look at Red Bull the last few years, they’ve had the fastest car. They’ve had the least amount of tyre deg. They’ve had the best pit stops. They’ve had the complete package to win on a regular basis.

“I think we have two great drivers. We clearly have a very fast race car. We have very good pit stops, but have room to improve. Our reliability is much stronger.

“We’re knocking on the door. It’s just about being a little bit incrementally better everywhere.”

Brown’s comments come after Verstappen warned in Monaco that Red Bull will be “very dangerous” and “very tough” to beat in a title fight due to their recent experience of competing at the front of the field.

He told media including PlanetF1.com: “Being at the front for quite a few years and as a team, the way we operate, I think it can make a difference to teams that are trying to chase that.

“We just try to stay calm and collected, we know that over the last few races teams have been catching up or have beaten us, so of course we want to try and improve as well.

“But I do think with the experience that we’ve had over the last few years, it makes us a very tough team to beat in a Championship, because we don’t make many mistakes.

“You try to always optimise everything and that [applies], I think, to life in general. You keep on learning, you keep trying to be better.

“But I think that does make us very dangerous in a championship fight.”