Brown likes McLaren's direction, as it tries to usurp Red Bull

McLaren Racing heads into Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix as Formula 1's hot new darling and the team that just may be able to finally dethrone Red Bull, while ending the dominance of Max Verstappen.

Red Bull and its Dutch driver have had an ironclad grip on both the drivers' championship and the more lucrative constructors' title since Verstappen won his first championship in 2021. Verstappen has three consecutive titles and leads the driver standings; Red Bull has back-to-back constructors' titles but, headed into the weekend, is no longer in pole position.

McLaren took the top spot with Oscar Piastri's win last Sunday. Coupled with Lando Norris' fourth-place finish, McLaren is now the constructors' leader for the first time since 2014. McLaren last won the constructors' championship in 1998.

McLaren starts the weekend in Singapore with a 20-point lead over Red Bull, which had led the constructors' competition since 2022.

"I think we've got as good a shot as anyone," Zak Brown, the chief executive of McLaren, boldly declared Sunday at the North America-based IndyCar's season-ending race.

He'd watched Piastri win and McLaren move to the top from Nashville, Tennessee, and even with the big-talking American half a world away, McLaren still managed to make tongues wag at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

McLaren arrived in Baku and admitted it would prioritize Norris and the drivers' championship over Piastri for the final eight races of this season. Norris trails Verstappen by 59 points in the standings, and Piastri certainly understood the assignment, getting the win for his team.

"Obviously, no racing driver wants to compromise their own race, so of course he doesn't love it, but he's a great team player, totally understands, also knows the role could be reversed in the future," Brown said of Piastri being given the wingman role for the remainder of the season.

"Also, it's not totally out of the question that it will be reversed later this year. If Lando goes out and has a couple of DNFs, Oscar goes out and wins a couple of races..." Brown shrugged. "So, I think (Piastri) recognizes that what goes around comes around, and it can very much come around his way."

Norris and Piastri have combined to win two of the last three F1 races for McLaren, while Verstappen hasn't won since the Spanish Grand Prix on June 23. While the team has said it wants Norris to dethrone Verstappen, Brown knows it is a long shot, unless Norris can find a way to hammer away larger chunks of Verstappen's lead in every race.

In Baku last Sunday, Verstappen finished one spot behind Norris in fifth, and Norris only gained three points on the champion.

"Lando made some points, but he needs to double the amount of points he got (in Baku) every race to catch him," Brown said. "I think that's a tall order, but we're gonna try."

Make no mistake, though, McLaren is hyper-focused on the constructors' title, which is the one that pays the big money. The payout to the winning team is set by variables each year, but is typically worth at least $140 million in prize money.

Red Bull's recent decline has been so dramatic that Brown doesn't even consider the team to be the top rivals for best constructor this year.

"I think Ferrari has showed how quick they are, so I actually think Ferrari might even be a bigger threat than Red Bull as we sit here right now, because I think Ferrari will be really strong in Singapore," Brown said.

Red Bull, between Verstappen and Sergio Perez, won 38 races in 2022 and 2023. Verstappen through 17 races has seven wins this year; Perez is yet to claim a Grand Prix.

Brown praised McLaren's rise under team principal Andrea Stella, who was lauded as "a wonderful team boss".

"Andrea and the leadership team have been able to unlock the potential and the people," Brown said of his young team's turnaround. McLaren is one of racing's most popular brands globally, and Brown has been clawing the team back toward the top-tier of F1 after a long drought.

Agencies via Xinhua