Other Teams 'Not Far Away' From Catching Red Bull Brown Suggests

Wednesday, 27 December 2023 at 10:00

The CEO of McLaren's F1 team, Zak Brown, recently shared he believes the F1 teams like McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, and Aston Martin are close to catching Red Bull.

Zak Brown told the media that the 2023 season would have been a lot more interesting if Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen "slipped on a banana peel."

If we eliminated the triple World Champion from the 2023 season, it would have been one of the most closely matched and exciting battles for the Championship ever.

There would be seven different Grand Prix winners from six different teams, and the title wouldn't have been decided until the penultimate race of the season.

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Asked about how long he believes it will take other teams to catch up with Red Bull. Zak Brown suggested we are almost there. As reported by motorsport.com, he said:

"We're kind of here now, unless Max and Red Bull continue doing what they're doing. Everyone's caught him at some point for a window of a weekend, so I don't think anyone's mega far away."

On the other hand, McLaren's team principal also mentioned the million-dollar question right now, which is how early Red Bull started developing the 2024 car and how much progress they made.

"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."

Carlos Sainz also believes the triple World Champion didn't have to show his 100% during a race of the season. On the other hand, Brown pointed to the enormous improvements the top five teams have made.

"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."

The biggest question until the first race of the 2024 season remains whether anybody can bring the challenge to Red Bull. Who do you think is most likely to make another big step forward?