Brown glad McLaren isn't getting swept up by 'silly season'

McLaren CEO Zac Brown is happy that his team is well out of the unsettling 'silly season' sweeping many teams in Formula 1 ever since Lewis Hamilton kicked things off with news of his exit from Mercedes for Ferrari.

The effects have even contributed to problems at Red Bull with rumours that Max Verstappen might decide to leave the world championship team in the wake of stories about Christina Horner and the rumoured departure of Adrian Newey.

By comparison, the situation is remarkably calm in Woking with Woking having cemented deals with their current highly regarded driver line-up consisting of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

“We’re trying to play a part in the silly season, but we’re just not part of it!” Brown joked to the media last week. “The F1 team, we know who our drivers are, we know our team principal."

McLaren has also inked an extension on their engine deal with Mercedes, giving the squad the stable foundation on which to bu8ild on their recent return to form in the championship.

• Read also: McLaren announces organisational changes

Norris managed to split the Red Bulls to finish on the podium in the Chinese Grand Prix, and the team is currently third in the constructors standings after the first five races of the 2024 season.

“I think one of the things that I'm trying to do is bring stability, visibility and longevity to all of our racing team," Brown explained in Shanghai. “We’re in a great position.

“Everything’s running according to plan," he continued. "We have our new technology in, we’ve got great sponsors.

"At a time where you've got some teams destabilised, not sure who's going to drive [for which team], engine changes and things of that nature, I think we're pretty strong position looking forward.

“We just want to keep our head down and get on with it," Brown added. “I’m feeling confident. I think all the men and women at McLaren have done a fantastic job."

Inevitably there have been a few bumps along the way, with David Sanchez abruptly quitting his role as Technical Director of Car Concept and Performance just three months after his arrival from working with Ferrari.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella will assume the new role of Technical Director – Performance in the interim until a permanent appointment is confirmed with Rob Marshall, Neil Houldey and Peter Prodromou sharing out other duties.

Stella said that Sanchez was "too senior" for the role tas it eventually evolved to come. "We talked and then we employed David which we go back to February 2023," he explained.

"In the meantime many things have happened at McLaren. There’s been a complete reorganisation of the technical department, an historic turnaround, and we have established some workflows and new structure.

"David is a very senior person, very senior figure in F1, and we kind of realised that to some extent he was almost too senior for the position," he argued adding that it was better "for his own career to pursue his ambitions at a different team."

“We came to this conclusion in an amicable and friendly way and we do hope that David is going to find a senior role in the very near future, and I strongly believe that that will be the case.”

Stella himself took over as team boss after his predecessor Andreas Seidl was poached to head up Audi's new F1 operation in 2026, while Brown recently signed a new contract to keep him in charge at McLaren through to 2030.

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