Brown Wouldn't Be Surprised To See Hamilton Win Eighth Championship In 2024

Monday, 08 January 2024 at 21:00

McLaren's CEO Zak Brown suggested in a recent interview that the F1 grid is so closely matched that he wouldn't be surprised to see Lewis Hamilton achieve his eighth Championship in 2024.

Although Red Bull won 21 out of 22 races in the 2024 season, Formula One teams have never been more closely matched before and are now all within one second per lap distance.

McLaren already proved last season that a team at the back of the grid can make a big enough step forward to compete for podiums regularly.

The Papaya team would like to repeat its previous development success and take another step forward to catch up with Red Bull. The British team's CEO, Zak Brown, told Speedcafe:

"We like what we’re seeing in the wind tunnel and CFD at the moment, so we feel like we’re going to take a step forward."

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No team principal or CEO is confident enough about their development progress ahead of the season as it will all depend on how big of a progress their rivals make.

Brown suggested their success in 2024 depends on how big of a leap forward Red Bull can take with the headstart they had going into the winter break.

"The great mystery on Red Bull is when did they turn off the development of their car to focus on next year [2024], and I think the answer is probably pretty early, so we’ll just have to wait and see how much Adrian Newey magic comes out of the oven so to speak to see where we are."

There have been quite a few equally matched teams behind Red Bull in 2023, and Brown suggested it could be any of them that makes a big step forward in 2024.

Mercedes's team principal warned about significant changes to their car ahead of the season and suggested simulation numbers indicate decent progress.

With the seven-time World Champion in their lineup Zak Brown wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton beating Red Bull in 2024 as he said:

"And at the same time, Mercedes or Ferrari, these teams have everything they need and are great teams, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we were sitting here and all of a sudden Mercedes was back to Lewis winning his eighth championship."