Zak Brown: "McLaren to leap to the front in 2018"
- Published on 25 Jan 2018 10:23
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- By: Rob Veenstra
Zak Brown has tipped McLaren to "leap to the front" early in 2018. With Honda power, the once-great British team had an abysmal three years to 2017, but for this year McLaren has switched to customer Renault power.
Team executive Brown is even predicting possible race wins. "Last year was the worst in the history of McLaren," he told CNBC, an American broadcaster that has joined McLaren as sponsor. "The last three years have been very painful," Brown added.
The American is a sponsorship expert, and he has explained that ending the dire Honda relationship was necessary in order to try to compete again with top F1 team budgets. "It's an expensive sport -- we're not able to compete financially with the top two teams," Brown admitted.
"We're still definitely one of the top four teams. We need to continue to improve there to put as much resource into our race team as possible. If we can get all of that right we're going to start to move up the grid significantly. I think you'll see us leap to the front in Australia," he said. (GMM)
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Replies (12)
Login to replyBarron
Posts: 625
Oh dear, that’s torn it. He must have picked up Ron Dennis’s book of Wild Unsubstantiated Promises he left behind.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Yup, the McLaren Boss Brain Parasite has claimed another victim.
reg
Posts: 162
As we all have said and will continue to say "the proof of the pudding will be in the eating"!
So not long now, to see if this is all hyperbole & hype, I hope and want to see them competing again, but..................................
Jutlandia
Posts: 191
Very optimistic, I think.
Kean
Posts: 692
Oh for the love of.... Will McLaren just keep quiet. They're jinxing it. I understand that one of the reasons for hyping themselves up is to court sponsors, but if they don't deliver now they will fall harder because of the hype.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I want to like McLaren, they've been my favourite team for ages, but the serial overpromising is seriously getting on my nerves, and I just dont feel they deserve my trust anymore. Yes, they suffered with Honda, but they werent exactly shining with Mercedes in 2013 and 2014 either, and I doubt this year will be different. If it is more of the same, I'll probably begin to ponder on whether Im still a fan of the current McLaren.
blade
Posts: 341
Agree, sometimes its better to say - 'told you so' when you've actually done something. A large part of viewing public don't remember their last win.
krommenaas
Posts: 155
It's a gamble. Promising the moon will help bring in sponsors, and then if they can deliver they will have looked smart. If not, they'll look extra-silly. Can't blame them for aiming high though.
Rindtchamp
Posts: 304
I'm not a McLaren fan but I'd like that, getting so very tired of watching Merc cruise to one win after another. zzzZZ
RogerF1
Posts: 501
Hope he can afford the team T shirts that get dished out at Woking on a winning Monday.
RogerF1
Posts: 501
PS. You would think Zak would insist on all the library photos being replaced for ones without him bearing the Honda logo.
My heart is with McLaren with previous business connections so really saddened me to see their woeful position. The most impressive business centre I have visited to date, hats off to Dennis for that, job well done.
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
I get very frustrated with such optimistic announcements after so many years of failures, but the McLaren fanboy within me can't help but dream every time I see promises of future greatness. All wishful thinking aside, I fully expect McLaren to be at least in the upper midfield from the beginning of the season. I don't expect them to be ahead of Red Bull right away, but if even with the stupid Honda engine they fought in the midfield regularly towards the end, and regulations have remained stable since 2017... it's reasonable to expect modest improvement.