McLaren prepared for ‘risk’ of 2007 repeat in Norris, Piastri title battle

McLaren CEO Zak Brown admitted a repeat of the 2007 season “could potentially be an outcome”, with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris being chased by Max Verstappen.

Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton were two of the main title contenders while they were McLaren teammates that year, but Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was able to snatch title glory at the final race of the season, having had only an outside chance of success beforehand.

McLaren accepting ‘risk’ of 2007 repeat as Max Verstappen closes in

Speaking with PlanetF1.com in May, Brown asserted that neither driver would be given preferential treatment while they were still mathematically in the championship hunt.

Even then, he conceded he was willing to lose the world championship rather that impose team orders.

“I’m comfortable with that,” Brown told PlanetF1.com at the time.

“I’m comfortable with that because the other scenario is, how do you take a driver out of the championship that’s competing for the championship? That’s not right at all.”

Red Bull driver Verstappen has taken 64 points out of Oscar Piastri’s title advantage in just four rounds, though the World Championship leader still heads teammate Norris by 14 points, and sits 40 ahead of Verstappen heading into the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Verstappen acknowledged after winning the United States Grand Prix that the chance is there for him to mount a title challenge from here, but Piastri retorted and said he would rather be in his current position than the chasing pack behind.

The battle between Norris and Piastri so far has been rather more amicable than what took place at McLaren in 2007, though, with Alonso and Hamilton famously not seeing eye-to-eye while seeking title glory in the same car, only for Raikkonen to pip both drivers to the post.

Speaking in Austin about how parallels could be drawn between now and 18 years ago, Brown was pragmatic in how such an occurrence may happen, while emphasising the main aim of McLaren securing the Drivers’ title to go alongside the team’s Constructors’ crown.

“Hey, look. That’s the risk, right?” Brown told PlanetF1.com and others when asked if a repeat of 2007 was in the team’s thinking.

“If you have two drivers like in 2007, where they equalled in points and Kimi barely beat them, but that’s how McLaren want to go racing. We want to have two drivers that are capable of winning the championship.

“On the flip side, when you get into one and two, that compromises your Constructors’ Championship. So it’s a difficult sport. We’re racers. We want to go racing.

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“We want both drivers to have a chance to win the championship, and that comes with some risk, like 2007, but we’re all aware of that and prepared that that could potentially be an outcome.”

On the subject of offering one driver preferential treatment, team principal Andrea Stella said only “mathematics” will dictate such a move, if required, while both drivers are in title contention.

As has been the case for much of the season, Brown added “we’ll continue to evaluate on a race-by-race basis”, but the continuation of McLaren’s equal treatment approach will remain at this stage.

“If we get to a situation – and that’s what we did last year in Baku – to start helping Lando, then what ends up happening is Oscar goes and wins the race and Lando helps him,” Brown explained.

“So this is a pretty unpredictable sport. But where we sit right now, we’re going to give both drivers equal opportunity to try and win the Drivers’ Championship.”

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock and Mat Coch

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