Zak Brown: 'Someone will eventually catch Max'

“Someone will eventually catch max - hopefully it will be us, chances are it will be a handful of people”, said Brown at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend.

“But he’s doing an unbelievable job and it is great to see world champions at the top of their game, so you’ve got to admire what he’s doing.”

Verstappen has been practically untouchable, taking seven pole positions and winning eight of the 10 races that have taken place so far this season. Surprisingly at the British Grand Prix weekend, Brown’s McLaren mounted the closest battle to the Red Bull driver, even leading the race for the opening laps with their new upgrade package that took them to the front of the grid.

This was despite starting out the season extremely disappointingly, having at least one of their drivers fail to make it out of Q1 on four occasions: “Racing’s been unbelievably close other than Max. You know, even Sergio (Perez)’s been in the mix.”

“I think it’s a great sign for Formula 1 that one weekend you have one team that's second quickest and the following weekend they’re struggling to get out of Q1, so I think that’s the competition that we’re looking for in Formula 1.”

Silverstone saw McLaren join a number of teams that have attempted to stake their claim as the fastest team on the grid behind Red Bull, with Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari separated by just 46 points from second to fourth in the Constructors Standings going into Hungary.

It has lead to some of the more gripping racing promised by the new regulations that were designed to bring the field closer, and while Verstappen and his team are well up the road now, Brown predicts there will be more entertainment to come beyond the world champion: “I think once you look past Max, the field is unbelievably condensed, and I think it's just going to get more exciting as we move forward.”