"Our story is as good as anyone's": McLaren boss positive about the team's future as compared to Red Bull and other giants of the F1 grid

McLaren CEO Zak Brown is confident about retaining his star driver Lando Norris, as he reckons the team is as good as any other front-runner in F1.

The Woking-based squad recently corrected its trajectory with a mid-season upgrade, putting them firmly in the mix at the front. The team also inaugurated a wind tunnel at their base and has two prominent technical leaders joining the team in 2024.

With the immediate future holding plenty of upsides for McLaren, team boss Zak Brown believes they're as good as any other top team.

“We've got our team in place. It's stable,” he said to ESPN. “We have additional talent coming to be additive to what we currently have. We have all the financial resources we need.”

“It's just going to take a little bit of time so as long as we can show this progress... '26 is going to be a huge reset for this sport and there's not going to be any excuses for us. We have everything we need from resources, people, two great drivers, all the technology, infrastructure,” he added.

Lando Norris signed a long-term contract with McLaren in early 2022, which will see him don the Papaya colors until the end of 2025. But the team massively under-delivered in 2022 and at the beginning of this season, leading to speculation about Norris' future.

The 23-year-old's perspective must have changed after taking two podiums, in Britain and Hungary, in the B-spec MCL-60. With the team showing genuine potential to compete at the sharp end, Brown believes McLaren remains the best place for Norris even beyond 2026.

“As long as [Norris] continues to see our pace and development then I think he'll have all the confidence in the world that this team's won 20 world championships and have everything they need, look at the momentum,” Brown said.

“You look down the grid, there's as many unknowns about '26. Red Bull with a new engine, how's that going to be? They've never done that before. There's all sorts of variables going on there and I think our story is as good as anyone's,” he concluded.

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Zak Brown claims McLaren will be a world championship team after recent overhaul

McLaren's long-due infrastructure projects are finally completed as its new state-of-the-art wind tunnel is up and running along with a new simulator. Zak Brown believes that this infrastructure overhaul, coupled with the new hierarchy in the technical department, will make the team a championship contender.

"Not having our own wind tunnel, having a 20-year-old simulator, being behind in CFD technology, those were big holes. Now this is going to be about fine-tuning," he said to Motorsport.com

"Then it'll just be about refining, learning, improving. But we'll have everything by January 1st in place to be a world championship team. Other than we just need some time," he added.

Brown also added that the full results from the new hierarchy and infrastructure will only be visible in the 2025 F1 season.