McLaren CEO Zak Brown points to Mercedes as the favorite and praises Red Bull, a classic move from a reigning champion working quietly while redirecting the spotlight elsewhere.
Zak Brown knows it well: when you are the reigning world champion, the best way to work calmly is to move the spotlight away from yourself. And so, while everyone looks towards Brackley, Maranello and Milton Keynes, the McLaren CEO weaves his web with the skill of someone who has fully mastered the art of Formula 1.
His words after the pre-season tests are a masterpiece of understatement: “It looks like the top four teams will still be there, but it’s still hard to know in what order.” Then comes the first move, the one that shifts attention elsewhere: “If we were racing today in Las Vegas, Mercedes would be the favorite at the moment, but there’s still a long way to go.”
McLaren and the pressure game
There it is: Mercedes identified as the favorite. Not McLaren, the reigning champion. Not the team that dominated the second half of the 2024 season. No, according to Brown, it is Brackley’s Mercedes that must carry the weight of expectations. A subtle, elegant move, deeply rooted in the DNA of winners.
But the Californian does not stop there. Because beyond shifting the main focus onto Mercedes, he also finds a way to praise Red Bull, the other historic rival: “But the Red Bull power unit was very powerful. I think everyone was pleasantly surprised. I’d prefer them not to be that competitive, but I’m impressed with what they’ve done, because they hit the track, racked up a lot of mileage and look very competitive.”
Do you notice the finesse? “I’d prefer them not to be that competitive” — as if to say that Red Bull is the real threat, not McLaren. As if the Woking-based team were just one of many contenders, rather than the squad that won both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships only a few months ago. It is the perfect subliminal message: look at them, not at us.
And when Brown speaks about his own Mercedes power unit, the one that many engineers consider the most competitive of the field? There is not even a hint of superiority. Instead, he once again highlights the strengths of others, downplaying his own assets. It is the classic champions’ trick, one we have seen countless times throughout Formula 1 history.
Formula 1 and the art of minimization
Michael Schumacher and Ferrari mastered this art during their golden years. “McLaren are very strong,” “Williams have made a big step forward,” while in Maranello they shaved off the thousandths that would ultimately make the difference. Mercedes perfected the approach in the hybrid era with Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Valtteri Bottas: always minimizing, always talking up the threat from Ferrari or Red Bull, while quietly dominating from Brackley with embarrassing margins.
Now it is McLaren’s turn under Brown’s leadership. And the American, who understands marketing and communication better than almost anyone else in the paddock, knows exactly how to play this game. He talks about Mercedes as the favorite, praises the Red Bull engine, compliments Ferrari, and even mentions Williams and Aston Martin to suggest that not everything has been revealed yet. Anything, as long as McLaren stays out of the spotlight.
Because while everyone focuses on the supposed Mercedes resurgence or the surprising competitiveness of the Red Bull power unit, McLaren does what it does best when it is at the top: relentlessly developing without noise, accumulating valuable data without advertising it, and refining the car.
In the quiet of the Woking garage, far from the spotlights that Brown skillfully directs elsewhere, Andrea Stella and his engineers get to work. They refine. They optimize. They build the margin that will matter when the lights truly go out, when it is no longer about media statements but about tenths of a second on the stopwatch.
It is a strategy as old as Formula 1 itself: push others onto the media pedestal, fuel their expectations, load them with the pressure that comes from being labeled as favorites. And in the meantime, work in the shadows to be ready when it truly counts.
Brown knows it: pre-season words are worth zero points. But they can be worth a lot in terms of managing pressure, expectations and media attention. Better that everyone looks elsewhere while you prepare the decisive strike.
It is the usual script, tested and successful: praise the others, raise their expectations, shift the spotlight and the pressure onto them. And I, the reigning champion, work in the shadows to dominate the podium when the lights really go out. In Bahrain, we will start to understand a bit more.
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