What a wasteful Dutch Grand Prix it was for McLaren. The Woking-based team has worked tirelessly to revamp their 2023 challenger: the MCL60. However, in doing so, the team may have exposed its weakest links. During the race last Sunday at Zandvoort, the team had absolutely no excuse to not finish on the podium. With Lando Norris starting from 2nd on the grid, and Oscar Piastri behind him with a pacey car, a big points haul was up for grabs.

Alas, a bizarre strategy call or two left the two drivers in no man’s land. In the end, the result was as disappointing as it could get given the potential of the team. Norris finished a hard-fought 7th, while Piastri just scrapped into the points in 9th.

Oscar Piastri joins Norris to hold McLaren accountable

The the first lap fiasco, McLaren surprisingly chose to leave the 23-year-old British racing ace out on dry tires as the track dampness rapidly escalated. And with a bizarre rationale behind the call, Norris jumped onto his radio comms to berate his engineer. He was quoted angrily as saying, “What the… Are you f**king stupid, mate?”

Now, in the aftermath of the race, Piastri has spoken up, too. He said, “I think there were maybe a few opportunities that we could have done a bit more with, also a couple of mistakes from my side that certainly didn’t help our cause.”

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While both Norris and Piastri are focused on getting the maximum out of the team in F1, CEO Zak Brown is channeling his energy on a vendetta elsewhere.

Zak Brown Shamelessly Resorts to Excuses After Lando Norris Aired McLaren’s Dirty Laundry in the Open

Zak Brown focused on teaching Alex Palou a lesson

McLaren has been struggling off the track, too this season. With IndyCar hotshot Alex Palou ditching an alleged contract with the Papaya team to race with Chip Ganassi instead. But Brown has taken this snub personally.

He was quoted by the media as saying, “Alex informed us that he has no intention of honoring his contract with us in IndyCar or Formula 1. We have a contract, so it’s now in a legal process. We filed in London courts last week against him, both as a person and his business entity. And we’ll just let the legal proceedings carry the situation forward,” during the Dutch GP weekend.

Is McLaren’s attention divided when they should solely focus on F1?

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