McLaren’s Zak Brown criticised over “pathetic” handling of F1 title battle

Former F1 team manager Peter Windsor has accused McLaren’s Zak Brown of having no plan to manage the escalating title battle between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

With eight races remaining in 2025, just 31 points separates Piastri and Norris at the top of the F1 drivers’ championship.

The title battle, so far at least, has had very few flashpoints.

Norris ran into the back of Piastri at the Canadian Grand Prix, but immediately apologised for the incident.

McLaren were under scrutiny for their handling of the end of the Italian Grand Prix.

Norris had been running ahead of Piastri for all of the race up until the pit stops.

Unusually, despite running behind his teammate, Piastri stopped first.

McLaren argued they did this to cover off Charles Leclerc, who had stopped much earlier for hard tyres.

While Piastri’s pit stop went to plan, there was a delay on Norris’, meaning he rejoined behind the Australian.

McLaren then felt inclined to intervene, instructing Piastri to move over.

Piastri obliged, even though he questioned it over team radio, pointing out that slow pit stops are simply part of racing.

McLaren have been widely criticised for their use of team orders.

Former McLaren race winner David Coulthard said they had “manipulated” the race.

Max Verstappen also laughed it off in an amusing exchange with his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase in the middle of the Italian GP.

Brown ‘has no plan’

With the 2025 F1 title battle likely to intensify in the coming weeks, it will be new territory for Brown and McLaren.

McLaren haven’t seen their two drivers fight for a title since 2007.

The team has drastically changed since then, with Ron Dennis no longer in charge.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Windsor took aim at Brown for McLaren’s handling of their two drivers.

“The days of Oscar giving positions away to Lando, you can’t expect Oscar or Lando to keep doing that as the championship battle tightens,” Windsor said.

“You’ve got to win at all costs in F1. McLaren are already preparing one of them or both of them, for not winning the championship and how they’re going to handle it.

Which is pathetic, if you’ve got two racing drivers who are very high quality and are going to be head-to-head, you can’t start saying that to them.

“It’s going to be bad for one of them for whoever loses. All this glad and happy stuff will eventually come crashing down. What is Zak’s [Brown] plan for handling it all? He doesn’t have one quite clearly.”