Zak Brown is “convinced” that beaten 2025 title hopeful Oscar Piastri will not only be a world champion in the future, but he will be one with his McLaren team.
McLaren adopted a policy of letting Piastri and Norris fight each other as freely as possible this year in their battle to be world drivers’ champion.
Piastri led the championship for a large stretch of the season, but his form collapsed after the midseason break, handing the initiative to Norris, who clinched the title on Sunday.
Some contentious issues along the way raised online theories of McLaren favoring Norris, such as the moment at the Italian Grand Prix when Piastri reluctantly agreed to let his teammate through for second after a botched pitstop.
The question of apparent McLaren bias towards Norris was even raised in the Australian parliament on the eve of the title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
McLaren CEO Brown has repeatedly refuted accusations of the team wanting one driver to win over the other and made a bold assertion about Piastri’s future, as well as insisting the policy towards its current driver pairing will continue into 2026.
“Oscar is going to be a world champion,” Brown said. “I’m convinced he’s going to be a world champion in a McLaren. While we got him a little bit later in his career, we still took a risk on both our drivers. Both times they drove a Formula 1 car, it was a McLaren.
“For a big team to take a risk on young drivers feels very rewarding. To be able to have two number one drivers against all odds, all the noise that we’ve had for so long that it’s impossible to do what we did, which is have two awesome racing drivers that won seven races each, that genuinely enjoy racing each other and are a treat to work with. They’ve never had an odd exchange between them.
“They’ve both been a little grumpy with Andrea [Stella] and I from time to time, but I think that’s good. We’re pushing each other hard and it’s just such an accomplishment. I’m very proud and looking forward to doing it again.”
Brown’s words are genuine — the harmony within the McLaren team is one of the strengths of the current race operation and many within the team expect Norris and Piastri to be closely matched again in 2026.
After the race, the new world champion praised the impact his teammate has had on raising his own performances.
“Oscar’s done an incredible job,” Norris said. “I’m glad I’ve had Oscar, you know, the last three years because even though, he’s still a lot newer to it than me, I’ve learned a lot from him. And he showed me up at many times and I’ve managed to learn a lot from him.”
