Zak Brown insists McLaren will match Ferrari’s upgrade push

Brown rejects fears over McLaren’s slower upgrade rollout

Zak Brown has insisted McLaren will introduce as many upgrades as Ferrari before the end of the season, despite the Woking team having so far added fewer new parts to its MCL40 than Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

The latest focus is McLaren’s planned upside-down rear wing. The team indicated in Austria that it intended to introduce its own version of the concept, following Ferrari and Red Bull. But before first practice, McLaren decided not to run the part because it had not reached the standard required. It was also absent at the British Grand Prix, leaving attention on next weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix as a possible debut point.

McLaren says upgrades are coming when ready

Brown acknowledged that Ferrari and Red Bull have been especially strong in bringing performance to their cars, while also crediting Mercedes. But he argued that upgrade counts alone do not yet tell the full story, because teams deploy parts only when they are ready.

“Ferrari and Red Bull have been very, very close. If you look at the [upgrades] list, and as Fred said, it doesn’t necessarily always give you a clear story, but I think Ferrari and Red Bull have done a fantastic job with their upgrades,” Brown said.

“Mercedes have done a fantastic job with their upgrades. We’re a little bit behind. I think it’s very early in the season to draw conclusions because you don’t know when everyone’s going to deploy their upgrades.”

A timing question, not a lack of parts

Brown’s message is that McLaren’s position is not defined by a lack of components, but by its refusal to manufacture and race parts before they meet the required level.

“So hopefully we’ll have as many as Ferrari has and you don’t know when their next one’s coming,” he added. “So I think the whole story is a bit early in the year because, as Fred said, you deploy them when they’re ready. They got them ready earlier than ours.”

He concluded: “We have just as many upgrades coming, we just haven’t put them on the race car yet because they’re not quite at the level that we’d like it to be before we produce the parts. Clearly Ferrari and Red Bull have done a fantastic job.”

For McLaren, the Belgian Grand Prix now represents more than another race weekend. It may become the next public measure of whether its cautious development strategy can begin to match the visible momentum of its rivals.