Brown not expecting 'miracles' from McLaren

Zak Brown is not expecting McLaren to produce any “miracles” across the remainder of the 2018 Formula 1 season, but says the team will not give up on developing its current MCL33 car.

McLaren currently sits sixth in the constructors’ championship, but has failed to score any points in the last two races, and has picked up just 16 points since the start of the European season 10 races ago.

While Fernando Alonso has led the team’s charge this year, teammate Stoffel Vandoorne has not scored any points since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in April, and has been eliminated at the first stage of qualifying in the last seven races.

McLaren’s struggles have led to a number of changes, including the departure of racing director Eric Boullier, while the team will field an all-new driver line-up comprising Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr. for 2019 as it looks to start afresh.

While McLaren Racing CEO Brown confirmed the team will continue to develop its 2018 car in a bid to remedy issues for next year, he warned against setting expectations too high. 

“I think other teams have developed at a faster pace than ourselves,” Brown said.

“I think it appears we’ve gone backwards. I think the reality is that everyone else has gone forwards, but in Formula 1, if you’re not going forwards, you’re going backwards.

“We knew Spa and Monza-type circuits would be our absolute weak point in the car, which has proven to be the case. We’re not giving up on developing because we’re identifying the issues and want to see if we’re able to solve them for learnings for 2019.

“We’ll continue to push on this car, but unfortunately we’ve produced an extremely poor race car that is not that responsive to changes, which I think tells you inherently, we just don’t have a good race car.

“So I would expect, unfortunately, similar type of results, maybe a little bit more circuit-specific.

“I wouldn’t expect any miracles.”