Zak Brown explains McLaren secrecy over Lando Norris repercussions

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has offered further hints as to the ‘repercussions’ facing Lando Norris following the Singapore Grand Prix.

Norris revealed on Friday of the United States Grand Prix that McLaren has “held him accountable” for the first-lap contact between himself and Oscar Piastri in Singapore, which will lead to “repercussions and consequences” for his final six race weekends of the championship.

Zak Brown: McLaren drivers remain free to race

Norris wouldn’t be drawn on what the repercussions applied to him are, and how impactful the consequences may be as he aims to cut Piastri’s 22-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship, which you can use sports betting promos for.

Aside from a lurking Max Verstappen, McLaren’s two drivers are the only contenders for the title, with both aiming for a maiden title.

But, with one of the two drivers now fighting with an unknown consequence for his actions in the first-lap clash between the pair, which resulted in minor damage to Norris’ car, McLaren CEO Zak Brown has revealed that the consequences Norris faces probably won’t be noticed by external viewers.

This suggests that the repercussions for Norris could be something equivalent to deciding the order of the attack on the final runs in qualifying, or perhaps pitstop preference overruling, rather than something more draconian like ceding position in a race.

“It’s marginal. It’s consistent with what happened, which was a racing incident at the end of the day, at the start of a Grand Prix with a track that was somewhat damp,” Brown said while appearing on Sky F1.

“It wasn’t intentional, so very marginal, it probably won’t be noticed.

“Lando and Oscar knows what it is, which is what’s most important. Of course, we want to be transparent with our fans.

“We are doing it the hard way, trying to let both guys race for the championship. The easy way out would be to have a one and two, as some teams do, but that’s not how McLaren want to go racing.

“We laid out how we go racing at the start of the year, and so [there’s] a little bit of sporting repercussion in lieu of what happened. So we move forward, drivers are comfortable.

“They’re free to race, and we’re looking forward to a big race weekend.”

Brown appeared in the FIA’s press conference shortly after his Sky interview, where he was grilled on the topic, given the lack of transparency about what one of the championship protagonists is facing.

“We set out at the beginning of the year how we want to race and how we want to race each other, and the papaya rules, which everyone likes to talk about, is pretty much one rule: don’t touch each other and don’t run each other off the track,” Brown said.

“So it’s quite simple, and it’s kind of taken on a life of its own. We just want to make sure that, while they’re racing hard, they don’t come together.

“That puts them at risk, puts the team at risk, and so we agreed with them in the offseason how we would handle certain situations. We worked with them with different consequences for different situations.

“It was a pretty minor situation, so it’s a pretty minor consequence.”

Asked to elaborate on what these consequences might look like, Brown said, “No, we don’t want to get into that. I think it’s private business between us.

“I know everyone’s interested to know that. Both drivers are in a great place, and we just want to set them up to continue to be able to race each other hard. It’s not easy having two number one drivers, but we want to have both drivers competing for the championship, and with that comes challenges that are more challenging than if you had a number one or two driver, which we’ve seen over the years.

“So we’re racers. We like to see them race, but we don’t like to see them touch each other.”

More on the Oscar Piastri v Lando Norris title fight

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As for why he and the drivers are opting against revealing any of the consequences that are in place, Brown pointed to the fact he is eager to ensure other teams can’t capitalise on any possible weaknesses.

“We’re racing against nine other teams, but you don’t want to, necessarily, show them how you go motor racing,” he said.

“So we try and be as transparent as possible. But there’s a reason why engineering debriefs aren’t with other teams, otherwise you start guiding other teams in.

“So I think that’s the best we can do.

“We try and be as transparent as possible in saying that some action has been taken. So I think that’s been very transparent.

“But you know, at the end of the day, we’re at a sporting event, and we can’t necessarily tell everyone everything, no different than our setup sheets aren’t very public.”

As for whether the fact one driver now possibly has a slightly steeper hill to climb, Brown said there’s no intent to create a situation in which one driver is playing a supporting role for the other, despite the proximity of Verstappen’s efforts.

“We’re one race at a time. I’ve been asked a lot to kind of predict the future,” he said.

“I think where we’re sitting right now is Max is too close for comfort. Lando is one win [behind Oscar], one DNF away.

“We saw what happened in Holland, how quickly things can change. So we’re just focused on this weekend, which is trying to get our drivers to finish first and second in the race, and we’ll just continue to evaluate on a race by race basis.

“If we get to a situation, and that’s what we did last year in Baku to start helping Lando, and then what ended up happening was Oscar went and won the race, and Lando helps him.

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

“We just want the drivers to race hard and and not touch each other. It’s as simple as that.”

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

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