McLaren CEO Zak Brown, who fields teams in both IndyCar and Formula 1, believes the latter “is going to get more competitive” in the coming years, just like America’s premier single-seater series.
Brown’s statement might seem foolhardy, given Max Verstappen scored more than twice the points of Drivers’ Championship runner-up Sergio Perez and won 19 of 22 Grands Prix in 2023.
Red Bull meanwhile, won all but one GP in 2023 and looked to be in a separate league compared to the other nine teams on the grid.
In IndyCar, 2023 saw seven different drivers claim victory across four teams, showing there is a long way to go for such race competitiveness in F1, but Brown points towards qualifying as a sign of closer competition in the near future.
“If you look at the timesheets even these teams that are ninth and 10th [in the standings] are a threat for Q3,” Brown said.
“For the championship, it’s probably going to be the same cast of characters, but I think Formula 1 is going to get more competitive.
“I think it’s going to be more like IndyCar where there’s a lot of drivers that can win at any one time and rarely someone runs away with the championship.
“If Max had slipped on a banana peel, the championship would have looked quite a bit different with how many people have been on the podium, how many people are finished second.
“I’m anticipating that getting closer and I think it’ll be great for the sport, that there won’t be this level of dominance and it’ll be like seven, eight drivers that can win in any one weekend.
“That’ll be awesome for the sport and I think that’s where we’re headed.”
Besides Red Bull, five teams stepped onto the podium during the 2023 F1 season, McLaren (9), Ferrari (9), Aston Martin (8), Mercedes (8) and Alpine (2).
F1 Chief Statistician Sean Kelly has made statements on The Race F1 Podcast that show the closeness in Qualifying that Brown refers to is indeed the true picture being painted.
“Despite what Max Verstappen gives the impression, we are operating in the closest Formula 1 grid that we have ever had in history,” Kelly said.
“We have had multiple Q1 sessions this year where less than a second was the spread between first and last [driver].
“That, in the early 90s, with the Williams FW14B, was the difference between first and second.
“And now it’s the entire grid.”
But how long until the tight-knit pack in F1 spreads from nine teams to all 10?
Brown’s McLaren team spent the majority of the second half of 2023 as Red Bull’s closest challenger so the American will hope his team can be the one to reign the champions in during 2024, which he believes to be possible.
“We’re kind of here now, unless Max and Red Bull continue doing what they’re doing,” he said.
“Everyone’s caught him at some point for a window of a weekend, so I don’t think anyone’s mega far away.
“But again, we don’t know when Red Bull stopped [developing].
“And I don’t think we’ll know that until next year if they have continued to run hard.
“I don’t think they’ve run as hard as the rest of us, they just haven’t needed to.
“But Ferrari has looked damn strong, Mercedes on Saturdays, we’ve had our days, Aston [Martin] started super strong; so I think we’re not far away from that convergence.”
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