{"id":22027,"date":"2024-07-15T04:03:21","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T08:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=22027"},"modified":"2024-07-15T04:06:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T08:06:50","slug":"zak-brown-underperforming-perez-gives-mclaren-title-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/07\/15\/zak-brown-underperforming-perez-gives-mclaren-title-hopes\/","title":{"rendered":"Zak Brown: “Underperforming” Perez gives McLaren title hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sergio Perez’s recent form has become one of the main storylines in F1, scoring just 11 points in the last five rounds. Despite recently signing a contract extension, Perez<\/a> is at risk of losing his seat. Whilst Red Bull deliberate on a decision, McLaren CEO Zak Brown believes there is an opportunity in the Constructors Championship<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

McLaren work to catch Red Bull<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Since McLaren’s Miami GP upgrades, they have quite uncontroversially been the fastest team. The MCL38 is exceptional<\/a> in high, medium and low-speed corners.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t lose competitiveness from qualifying to race day either, consistently taking good care of its tyres.<\/p>\n

To a large extent, only McLaren’s limitations have prevented them from taking the lead<\/strong> in the Championship.<\/p>\n

A combination of driver errors, poor strategy and general operational incompetence have been costly for the Woking-based outfit.<\/p>\n

Even with Perez barely scoring any points, Verstappen<\/a> has managed to limit the damage – taking seven victories in 2024 so far.<\/p>\n

Brown: McLaren aware of this year’s opportunity<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Despite this, Zak Brown believes the Mexican driver’s poor results provide a window of opportunity:<\/p>\n

“I think it’s going to be dependent on Perez, at the end of the day.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“You’ve got to assume that Max is going to be first, second or third at every race…<\/em><\/p>\n

“Sergio Perez underperforming is what’s opening the window for us. I think if we have the same points gain we’ve had the last six races, the balance of the year, we’d get the job done.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“So we’re fully aware of it.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Zak Brown, CEO, McLaren Racing, on the pit wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Still room to improve<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Of course, it would be objectively incorrect to ignore the deficit in performance within the Red Bull<\/a> garage.<\/p>\n

For most of the season – and frankly, for the last few years – Verstappen has done the heavy lifting at Milton Keynes.<\/p>\n

It seems fair to assume that, should this continue for the next twelve rounds, McLaren have plenty of time to cut down the gap.<\/p>\n

However, the British outfit have barely made a dent in Red Bull’s advantage<\/strong> in the standings since Miami. They are also yet to overtake Ferrari<\/a>, whose struggles in the last four rounds have been significant.<\/p>\n

Should Perez start to perform, or if Red Bull replace him with someone who can, it seems fair to assume the reigning Champions will extend their lead in the standings.<\/p>\n

McLaren might have a race-winning car, but they have often failed to capitalise on this<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The fact Mercedes<\/a> have taken consecutive wins before McLaren in 2024 is evidence of the operational deficit that team Papaya must bridge.<\/p>\n

With the second half of the year still to play for, there are plenty of questions next to be answered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sergio Perez’s recent form has become one of the main storylines in F1, scoring just 11 points in the last five rounds. Despite recently signing a contract extension, Perez is at risk of losing his seat. Whilst Red Bull deliberate on a decision, McLaren CEO Zak Brown believes there is an opportunity in the Constructors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":22030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[68,465,66,78,812],"class_list":["post-22027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-f1","tag-f1-news","tag-mclaren","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-zak-brown"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}