Zak Brown Fires Brutal Dig at Former McLaren Driver in Foul-Mouthed Speech
McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has called out one of his former drivers in a brutal speech.
Following a dramatic 2025 Formula One season, McLaren Racing were crowned World Constructors' Champions for the second consecutive season.
On top of this, star driver Lando Norris also won the Drivers' Championship, marking one of the most successful seasons for McLaren in some time.
Of course, the whole team have spent much of the time since the season ending race in Abu Dhabi celebrating the successes of 2025, with the Woking-based team hosting a celebratory event over the weekend.
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But it wasn't all celebrations during the event, as McLaren Racing boss Brown took the opportunity to take a random shot at one of his former drivers.
The 2025 season will certainly be viewed as Brown's best in charge of the Formula One team as they’ve retained the trophy since the 1990 and 1991 seasons.
But it's safe to say that when he joined the team in 2018, things weren't as impressive as they are now as McLaren finished ninth in the standings, scoring just 30 points, in his first season in charge.
Before Brown's arrival, McLaren had signed Fernando Alonso and promising talent Stoffel Vandoorne, a driver that struggled to reach his potential under Brown after falling out with him.
And as he reflected on the 2025 season during a celebratory event with the rest of the McLaren team, Brown decided to take a sly dig at Vandoorne, seven years after the Belgian left the team.
Addressing his drivers, Brown claimed: "We took big risks on both of you, and don't pretend you had better options.
"You (Piastri) had f****** Alpine and you (Norris) had to go faster than Stoffel Vandoorne."
When Vandoorne left McLaren, he was replaced by an 18-year-old Norris who joined Carlos Sainz as McLaren's new drivers for the 2019 season.
Initially, Vandoorne had performed well with McLaren, contributing to an encouraging 43% of the team’s points in his first season, but this suddenly changed after Brown's arrival.
Reflecting on his time at McLaren, Vandoorne told Motor Sport Magazine: “Zak and I got on well at first, then that changed. Things started to go south. I began to lose confidence in my surroundings.
“I felt Zak didn’t want me, and I think that was true. It simply wasn’t an environment that you could perform in.”
Meanwhile Brown's comment to Piastri is in reference to Alpine trying to sign the Australian ahead of him joining McLaren to make his F1 debut in 2023.
Alpine and Piastri had a major contract dispute ahead of him joining the British team, leading to him releasing a now infamous statement on social media confirming that he would not be joining Alpine.
It read: "I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press release late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year. This is wrong and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for Alpine next year."
Since then, Alpine have been one of the worst teams on the Formula One grid, finishing bottom of the World Constructors' Championship table on 22 points, 48 points behind ninth-placed Sauber.
Topics: Formula 1, McLaren, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri
Ben McCrum