McLaren responds to ‘if Max Verstappen is champion’ question as title battle heats up

McLaren CEO and team principal, Zak Brown and Andrea Stella, have addressed the possibility of Max Verstappen winning an unlikely fifth World Championship ahead of one of their drivers.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri sit one point apart at the top of the standings with four races to go, but while he is still out of range for now, Red Bull driver Verstappen has closed what was a 104-point deficit to 36 heading into the closing stages.

McLaren bosses address 2007 possiblity amid recent Verstappen surge

McLaren wrapped up the Constructors’ title in Singapore, and all eyes since then have been on the Drivers’ battle between Norris and Piastri, with Norris having overhauled a 34-point deficit to now lead his teammate heading into the final rounds.

All the while, however, Verstappen has been using a boost in performance to his advantage to eat into the overall advantage held by the McLaren duo, making what has largely been a two-horse race this season add an unlikely third runner.

While he still has a significant deficit to overcome, Verstappen cannot yet be ruled out of launching a late challenge for a fifth consecutive title.

Should either Norris or Piastri be pipped to the post, however, team principal Stella will be gracious in defeat, and look to challenge again next season, knowing the team has stuck by its principles.

“If Max is the champion at the end of the year for us, the important thing is that we can say we have done our best, and we have done our best according to the way we go racing,” Stella told the Beyond the Grid podcast.

“If Max wins this year, we say we’re going to win next year. We’re going to be there, and we are going to be there, united as we are.”

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Brown agreed that the possibility of the 2007 season repeating itself, when Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso had been title favourites before losing out to Kimi Raikkonen at the final round in Brazil.

While both drivers had been battling for individual glory, Raikkonen was able to take the title for himself in dramatic circumstances at Interlagos.

Acknowledging the possibility of a repeat scenario, chief executive Brown explained that he would rather have that happen again than choose one driver over another while the drivers sit so closely together in the standings.

“I’d shake his hand and say ‘job well done’,” Brown said of Verstappen, should he win the title.

“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 tie on points, one [Raikkonen] gets in the front. But, we’ve got two drivers who want to win the world championship. We’re playing offence, we’re not playing defence.

“I’d rather go ‘we did the best we can, and our drivers tied in points, and the other guy beat us by one’ than the alternative, which is telling one of our drivers right now when they’re 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, and 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. We’re going racing.”

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