McLaren CEO Zak Brown has set a target he would like to reach at the end of the season. There’s a long way to go, he says

They started the season horribly, even this year it looked like an absolute disaster. But McLaren managed to bounce back and thanks to new upgrades, they’re back in contention for the podium. The CEO of the British team, Zak Brown, has thus set a target for McLaren to achieve at the end of the season.

Even when they unveiled the new monopost for this season, they announced that it would not be good this year. Is there a worse way to start a new season when you almost write it off at the very beginning? This was the question many were asking, with the dire scenario starting to come true immediately.

Rookie Oscar Piastri failed to finish the inaugural Bahrain Grand Prix, with Lando Norris as team leader finishing only seventeenth. And that was with a two-lap deficit to the race winner.

It was no better in the other races, except for the Australian Grand Prix, where McLaren shone to the best of its ability – Norris finished sixth, Piastri eighth. But in the next five Grands Prix, McLaren scored an embarrassing five points.

It brought back memories of the 2015 to 2018 nightmare for fans of the Woking stable. But the turning point came at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. The team brought in a big package of upgrades that finally worked as expected.

This was followed by upgrades from Silverstone and a final tune-up from the Hungaroring, whereupon McLaren scored 30 and 28 points respectively from those races. A minor sobering up came at Spa, but there it was mainly the poor set-up of both cars that was to blame.

With a total of 103 points, McLaren was in any case alone in fifth place in the Constructors’ Cup.

There’s still a long way to go…

In an interview with Laola1, McLaren CEO Zak Brown set a target he would like to reach later this season. The British team has ten more Grands Prix to reach that benchmark, plus three more Sprints in Qatar, USA and Brazil.

“Red Bull is an incredible team. We’re trying to get close to Max, but every time you think you’re close, he gets away from you. It’s impressive to watch,” Brown said in an interview.

“To be the second-fastest team, the best of the others, at the end of the season would be very satisfying. There’s still a long way to go, but we’re definitely back in the game,” he thinks of finishing second in the Constructors Cup.

McLaren is currently 144 points behind second-placed Mercedes. The assault on third place seems a little more realistic, with 93 points behind Aston Martin, which seems to be slowly losing its breath.

“A lot of things are playing well together. Our aerodynamic improvements are impressive. I take my hat off to that. The drivers are now showing their potential. They were doing a very good job before, but now they can be even more convincing in the improved car,” Brown concluded.

Source: F1, Laola1