Zak Brown spots opportunity for McLaren in F1 title race: “I think we all got that wrong”

Zak Brown has urged McLaren to capitalise on Red Bull having just one car scoring big points as Sergio Perez’s slump in form continued at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Perez’s difficult run of form continued in Sunday’s race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as he finished eighth.

It still meant Red Bull came away from Spain with the most points as Max Verstappen took the win.

However, due to Perez’s stuttering performances, Verstappen’s lead in the drivers’ championship is greater than Red Bull’s in the constructors’ championship.

Brown feels there’s an opportunity for McLaren to close in - something that wasn’t seen as remotely possible after the season-opener in Bahrain.

“We took a small chunk out a Ferrari, Mercedes got a few points on us,” Brown told Sky Sports.

“Ferrari is definitely within reach but so is Mercedes and Red Bull, if Perez picks up the pace, then they’ll be very hard to compete [against].

“So I think we got to kind of take advantage of the fact that at the moment, Max is at the front and Sergio is running in the points. That might give us an ability to claw into that lead a bit.

“The fact that we all thought this was over at the first race, I think we all got that wrong.”

It was 12 months ago when McLaren turned their fortunes around with a sizeable upgrade in Austria.

Since then, McLaren have consistently been a podium contender - or race win challenger.

With four races coming up in five weeks, Brown is excited about McLaren’s chances.

“Excited for a lot of races, more races the better as far as I'm concerned,” he added.

“We just got to keep doing what we're doing. I think Andrea [Stella] sets great direction for the team.

“We remain very focused. We're [going] one race at a time. Of course, we think beyond that when it comes to things like development. But now we'll turn our attention to Austria, we won't worry about Silverstone other than what people are doing back at the factory who continue to develop the car.”