McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown believes his team will benefit from the “harmonious relationship” between its drivers compared to the more challenging situations their rivals are facing.
While Carlos Sainz Jnr is due to leave the team at the end of the year, Brown said he has no interest in pushing for an early release in order to bring Daniel Ricciardo in sooner.Sainz and team mate Lando Norris are well-regarded for having a constructive and easy-going relationship.
“We’re happy with our driver line-up this year,” said Brown. “We’re happy with everyone else’s driver line-up this year. So I think I want to continue the harmonious relationship we have going on right now.”
Sainz will move on to Ferrari, who announced in May that Sebastian Vettel would leave them at the end of the year. When Sainz’s move was confirmed, Ricciardo pounced on the opportunity to leave Renault for McLaren.
Racing Point confirmed this weekend they would make room for Vettel at their team by cutting Sergio Perez’s three-year contract short.
Brown says that the discord between the team mates of some of McLaren’s direct competitors is advantageous to the team.
“We have two drivers that are doing an excellent job and some other teams which have disruption in their garage,” he said. “So I think I want to continue the harmonious relationship we have going on right now.
“If we were to consider changing, that would maybe only be to the benefit of other teams that are maybe a little bit more destabilised in the garage at the moment.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Robbie (@robbie)
12th September 2020, 14:47
Not really buying this, unless he thinks one of the outgoing drivers at RP, Ferrari, and Renault are either going to sandbag, or are going to be treated badly, and I don’t think either will happen with any of these drivers, including Sainz. Of course it would be a disruption to try to release Sainz and take on DR mid-season but that simply isn’t happening, so…methinks Zak can’t count on any more destabilizing than he might experience himself with Sainz. Ie. nil. What wouldn’t surprise me is if this is just another one of his verbal shots at RP, suggesting/hoping they’re now destabilized just to try to get under their skin, which he has been doing since the start of the season.
NS Biker (@rekibsn)
12th September 2020, 15:53
Wrath of Khan … Spok to Kirk.
“He is intelligent, but inexperienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking”.
Most team leaders are usually more focused on next season as much as or more than this one.
Would next season benefit from getting your drivers sorted now rather than in January.? Darn right.
Would DR be equal or ahead of CS in short order, safe bet. Especially with sim time and a Ferrari style “filming day” .
The carousel horse swap that is due to occur can’t come early enough for my liking. It’s gonna be great to watch.