McLaren boss Zak Brown admits ‘surprise’ at his team challenging Red Bull

McLaren are currently on a 10-race run of consecutive podium finishes

Zak Brown’s McLaren have enjoyed a hugely impressive run of results (Getty Images)

McLaren boss Zak Brown has admitted that his team are ahead of schedule, leaving him shocked that they are in with a real chance of winning the F1 Constructors’ Championship.

The Woking-based team are just 42 points behind leaders Red Bull, with 10 races still to go, and far exceeding pre-season expectations when a dominant victory for Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez’s team was expected.

But Perez has badly struggled for Red Bull, while McLaren are currently on a 10-race run of consecutive podium finishes, which is their best sequence since achieving 13 in a row in 2011-2012.

“If I were to sit here and say I’m not surprised, that would be disingenuous,” Brown told BBC Sport. “Red Bull had such an advantage over everyone and Mercedes has been so dominant.

“I felt like we’d continue to close the gap. Did I think we would be here at the summer break, one race away from getting the lead?

“I thought we might get where we are now by 2025. I didn’t think we would be where we are now in 2024. But I’m not complaining.”

McLaren have been the highest-scoring team of the past eight races, thanks largely to four second-place finishes by Lando Norris and a maiden F1 win by teammate Oscar Piastri in Hungary.

Lando Norris’s consistency has been a real boon for McLaren (Sky Sports)

And Brown now expects the race to win the Constructors’ Championship to come down to the wire, with the results of under-performing Perez being the potentially decisive factor.

“I think it’s going to come down to the last race,” added Brown. “There’s not much between the cars. It’s gonna come down to how does Sergio Perez perform?

“If he can perform as he’s capable of performing, it’s going to be a hard fight. If he continues to perform as he has this year, we have a pretty good chance, because we have two drivers constantly performing at the front.”

This comes after Red Bull driver and current F1 champion Max Verstappen admitted that he believes he no longer has the fastest car in Formula 1, following the recent improvements by both McLaren and Mercedes.