According to Zak Brown, head of McLaren, Max Verstappen is like the character in a horror movie who refuses to be defeated.
Verstappen is in a close battle for the drivers’ championship with McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
Verstappen and Piastri are 24 points behind Norris before this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix, the penultimate round of the season.
In September, Verstappen was 104 points behind the championship leader, but since then he has starred in one of the most impressive comebacks in F1.
It’s like that kind of horror movie, that just when you think it’s not going to come back, it comes back!
Zak Brown
Brown, whose team has already secured a second consecutive constructors’ championship, has praised the skill of the Dutch driver.Max Verstappen y Oscar Piastri se encuentran a 24 puntos de Lando Norris antes de los dos fines de semana finales.McLaren has reiterated its commitment to allow Norris and Piastri to compete freely without team orders until one of them is mathematically out of contention.
Even Verstappen defended that policy before the Qatar Grand Prix, joking that it was “perfect” for him, as no driver who wants to win a world title wants to help another driver win it.
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McLaren’s approach to managing its drivers has been a topic of debate this season and Brown said he is happy that the internal environment has remained so positive.
Regarding online conspiracy theories about Brown preferring Norris over Piastri as the first McLaren world champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2007, the American scoffed.
“That’s complete nonsense,” he said. “And we hear the nonsense out there, and there’s a lot of it. On the one hand, it’s frustrating, because people are very misinformed… it’s difficult to prove. But we know it, Oscar knows it, Lando knows it, our team knows it. But unfortunately, in today’s world of social media and sensationalist headlines and all that, the facts are very far from reality.”
