Zak Brown: McLaren won't let emotion derail F1 title fight

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has confirmed the Woking outfit will not let emotion change its approach in the drivers' championship fight despite the rising pressure.

McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, along with Red Bull's Max Verstappen, are all still in contention for the drivers' title with three rounds remaining. Norris currently leads by 24 points over his team-mate, who leads Verstappen by 25 points.

While discussing the championship coming to a head in the upcoming weeks on the High Performance podcast, Brown explained that the team is so focused on what it is doing that it will not allow emotion to pull it off course.

"I would be very surprised if there were just boring races to the end. What I don't know is what's going to happen, what's going to be exciting, what's going to be drama," the American explained.

"So all I can do is kind of draw on what's worked because we've had drama this year. So, this might be magnified because of what's at stake with so few races left, but we'll just keep doing what we're doing.

"We're so focused, and we're not going to let emotion pull us off of just keep doing what you're doing.

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"So, if something pops up in Brazil or Abu Dhabi or pick a race, it was the same thing in Abu Dhabi last year, seven-tenths of a second. On Saturday, we were looking pretty good. First and second on the grid. Carlos was what, P3, P4? Charles is back in P17, P18. It's like Turn 1, our whole world changed.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

"Lando's on fire. Oscar, you've got to come up. We can't control what Ferrari is going to do. So, it's just let's just go win this race and Oscar, make up as much ground as you can, and let's just do what we've done all year. And that's what we did. We didn't change our game. We didn't panic.

"When it came down to the final pitstop, which is my seven-tenths of a second, we did a two-second pitstop. Had we done a 2.7-second pitstop, Lando comes out in front of Carlos, but Carlos in his DRS, which is very powerful in the second sector. Carlos would have definitely got by him. Would Lando have got him back? I would have liked to have thought so, but I'm so happy I didn't have to find out.

"And so here you have 24 races. All this going on, and it came down to seven-tenths of a second, because if Carlos wins, Lando doesn't win, we don't win the world championship."

The Las Vegas Grand Prix, which will kick off the final triple-header of the season, is set for 20-22 November.

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