Ever since Lando Norris joined Formula 1 and McLaren in 2019, McLaren CEO Zak Brown has promised him a car that could potentially win the championship time and again. But season after season, the team has failed to deliver. And 2023 has arguably been the worst start to a season the Woking team has had since Norris became a part of it. For Norris fans, watching his champion potential get wasted every year did not sit right with them. For McLaren fans, watching the second-most successful team in F1 history struggle even to breach the midfield wasn’t something they wanted to witness every year. And so started the demands for Zak Brown’s ouster for having failed to deliver what he’s been promising for quite a while now.

At a time when almost every McLaren fan has lost hope in his leadership, he’s found a silver lining, a sliver of hope to hang on to. And it came at the hands of Lando Norris at the Austrian GP.

Zak Brown’s fate at McLaren is riding on its recent upgrades

After another underwhelming performance at the Canadian GP, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella announced a major overhaul of upgrades the team would be introducing in Austria, adding upgrades at the British and Hungarian GPs in the following weeks. And after Norris’ performance in Austria in his upgraded MCL60, there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. After qualifying in fourth, Norris crossed the line in fifth but got promoted to P4 after a post-race penalty for Carlos Sainz.

While talking to Speedcafe about the upgrades and McLaren’s Austria performance, Brown said, “I think Austria was a great validation – we thought we’d be pretty strong. Now we need to ensure that continues on these other races, and it wasn’t track specific.”

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In Austria—a track where McLaren has done well in the past—McLaren probably had the third-best car, faster than both Mercedes and Aston Martin. Coming into its home race in Silverstone, he said, “Our desires are to be mingling up with the top four teams like we did [in Austria].”

“Whether I’m Happy or Not…”: With His Fate Sealed at McLaren Until 2025, Lando Norris Refuses to Blame Zak Brown & Co. for Continued Failure

Although he knows catching up to the four teams ahead would be difficult, he hopes to continue this development trajectory and have more weekends like Austria. And just like he’s shown his faith in Norris time, and again, Lando has been there to defend him.

Lando Norris stands by Zak Brown & Co.

Zak Brown claimed that McLaren knew it wouldn’t be competing toward the front of the grid during the MCL60’s launch itself. But even the team wouldn’t have expected to be one of the slowest—if not the slowest—cars on the grid at the start of the season. Since then, Brown has made significant changes in the team, including a reshuffle to improve performance. Through all this, even though the development rate was slow, Norris stuck by Brown and didn’t throw him under the bus. 

While talking about McLaren’s season, he said, “We’ve definitely been unlucky at times. It’s more than every other team is doing decently. You know we’ve got the budget cap coming into play more and more. So the smaller things which didn’t matter quite so much in the previous years, you’re paying the price for them more than ever. There is no struggling or bad team in Formula 1.” 

Will McLaren carry the momentum it gained in Austria to Silverstone?

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