Zak Brown’s bizarre McLaren claim: ‘We didn’t have the fastest car for three of our wins’

Zak Brown has claimed McLaren haven't had the fastest car for three of their five wins in F1 2025.

McLaren have enjoyed an impressive start to the 2025 F1 season.

The Miami Grand Prix was their most dominant weekend of the year so far, with George Russell finishing over 30 seconds behind Lando Norris in second.

McLaren are already 105 points ahead of Mercedes in the 2025 F1 constructors’ championship fight.

Despite McLaren’s strong start to the year, Brown was keen to downplay their advantage.

The McLaren CEO suggested they didn’t have the fastest car in three of the five races they won.

“I know it’s 5 of 6, and technically that’s statistically dominant,” Brown said. “But I can tell you, having been on pit wall for the wins, this one was obviously one we could control.

“Australia was tricky conditions – the other three that we won, we weren’t even the fastest car. We just executed really well. A lot of racing to go, great to see the gap here, but we’re not taking anything for granted.

“But a long way to go. This time last year we were third in the Championship I believe.

“And the team that was leading the Championship ended up in third…. tells you there’s a lot of racing left to go.”

Is Brown right about McLaren?

While Norris won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix by less than one second, McLaren had a decisive pace advantage over the rest of the field.

Norris and Oscar Piastri ran over 15 seconds ahead of Verstappen before the Safety Car period caused by Fernando Alonso.

In China, Russell finished 11 seconds off the lead McLaren. 

At Suzuka, Verstappen took the only non-McLaren victory of the year.

However, both McLaren drivers felt they had the pace to get ahead of Verstappen but couldn’t due to the lack of clean air.

Japan was down to Verstappen’s brilliance rather than car advantage.

McLaren had the fastest car in Bahrain, with Piastri winning by over 15 seconds.

So far, in 2025, the only race in which McLaren might not have had the fastest car was in Saudi Arabia.

Verstappen pulled away from Piastri when leading the race and finished just a few seconds behind the Australian.

The four-time F1 world champion would likely have won without his penalty for the incident on the opening lap.

So it’s not up for debate that McLaren have been fastest in five of the six races this season.