Zak Brown shuts down Verstappen to McLaren talk

McLaren CEO Zak Brown says the team is “not in the market” for Max Verstappen and has no intention of breaking up its current Formula 1 driver line-up of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, despite fresh reports of contact with Verstappen’s side.

Brown spent a run of British radio appearances reinforcing McLaren’s position after speculation flared around the Austrian Grand Prix. On The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X, Brown said: “We have two awesome racing drivers in Lando and Oscar, and you're going to see them in our race cars for a long, long time.” On Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden, he added: “We’ve got two awesome drivers in Lando and Oscar, so no intention of seeing any different lineup.”

The rumors gathered momentum after reports that preliminary talks had taken place between Verstappen’s management and Brown. Sky Sports News reporter Craig Slater said on Monday that the contact “did indeed happen” and that “it was instigated by Max Verstappen’s people.”

Brown did not deny that Verstappen’s name is part of the wider market conversation. Asked by Sky Sports F1’s Ted Kravitz on the Spielberg grid about the prospect of signing the four-time world champion, Brown joked: “If, for some strange reason, someone slipped on a banana peel getting out of the tub, then of course, Max is a four-time world champion.”

That line left a sliver of room for the hypothetical, but Brown’s wider message was that McLaren is sticking with the pairing it already has. He said on Heart that “the phone rings often” and called Verstappen “a massive talent,” before adding: “We’ll see what the future holds, what he ends up doing. But I know what our plan is – it’s keep going with what we got.”

Brown also framed McLaren’s stance as awareness rather than pursuit. “Anytime you're in sport, you’ve got to kind of know what the market’s doing, but we’re not in the market,” he said. “So, we need to pay attention, because you never know. But Lando and Oscar won 14 races for us last year, and I’m looking forward to the next 14.”

That leaves McLaren publicly committed to Norris and Piastri, even as Verstappen’s future continues to generate noise and even as Brown acknowledges that interest around a driver of Verstappen’s stature will always force teams to listen.