McLaren CEO Zak Brown has acknowledged that the team’s expectations have significantly risen as they continue to emerge as genuine championship contenders in the 2024 Formula 1 season.
With the Woking-based squad now regularly competing for victories, Brown admits that finishing second or third on race day feels “a little bit flatter” compared to earlier in their journey.
McLaren’s resurgence this season has been marked by a string of impressive performances, narrowing the gap to Red Bull to just 42 points with ten races remaining.
The team’s breakthrough came in Miami, where Lando Norris secured his first-ever F1 win, and Oscar Piastri followed up by leading a dominant 1-2 finish at the Hungaroring.
However, driver errors and strategic blunders have prevented McLaren from maximizing their potential and adding more wins to their tally.
But Brown believes that the team's increased aspirations are a positive sign but concedes that McLaren’s attitude toward podium finishes has evolved on the back of its recent successes.
“It has, because of how many times we’ve finished second and now that we’ve tasted winning,” he told Autosport.
“Second certainly still is an awesome result, we always celebrate every podium because it’s a huge accomplishment – we’re not taking it for granted.
“But we want to win and we know we’re in a position to win. So when we finished second, as we have this year, by a second or a half a second, as we did in Imola and so close in Canada, that feels a little bit flatter of a podium, than a few years ago when we were just starting to get back on the podium.”
Lando Norris’s victory in Miami last May, achieved after 110 F1 starts, was a milestone for both the driver and the team.
Despite this success, Norris has been vocal about his annoyance over missed opportunities in subsequent races, leading him to call for a “reset” during the current break.
Brown attributes this frustration to the increased expectations that come with being a front-runner.
“I think the aspiration to win has only gotten greater,” he explained. “He’s always been a great driver, the only thing that’s taken so long is us giving him a car to be capable of winning in.
“Now he’s running at the front on a regular basis, so I think expectations are clearly higher.
“We know we’re coming into these races here most recently with the chance to win every weekend.
“So with that comes some more excitement, but higher expectations and more pressure, but we’re all enjoying it.”
McLaren has also faced a number of challenges in terms of strategy and execution. While Brown acknowledges that mistakes are inevitable, he believes that learning from them will help the team improve
“I think some of the mistakes that we’ve made this year have been from the youthfulness of a team that’s not run at the front as regularly as we are now,” he said.
“Silverstone, we didn’t optimize. Hungary, we got there at the end, but not without some excitement. So I think it’s just going to take a little bit more time.
“I think Toto [Wolff, Mercedes Team Principal ] eloquently said sometimes you don’t learn this stuff until you’re in the heat of the battle.”
©McLaren
Brown remains optimistic about McLaren’s future, emphasizing the importance of learning from these experiences.
“Now that we’re in the heat of the battle, we’re learning some stuff as we go along but that’s okay.
“What I always tell the team is mistakes are okay, just learn from them and don’t make the same one twice. That makes you smarter next time around.
“So I’m quite relaxed with the learnings that we’ve gone through this year.”
As McLaren continues to close the gap to the top, the team’s rising expectations reflect their belief that they can regularly compete for wins.
While podium finishes were once celebrated with unbridled enthusiasm, the taste of victory has left the team hungry for more, and anything less than a win now feels like a missed opportunity for team papaya.
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