Can McLaren steal the championship? Brown says 'it's game on'

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says “it’s game on” in the championship battle after Lando Norris’ dominant victory in the Dutch Grand Prix. Norris took pole position by over 0.35s and although he lost the lead to Max Verstappen at the start, he subsequently overtook the championship leader and went on to win by over 22 seconds. After adding an extra point with the fastest lap on the final lap of the race too, Norris reduced Verstappen’s lead in the standings to 70 points with nine races remaining, and Brown believes it’s a realistic target to keep closing that gap. “That was a good day at the office,” Brown told SiriusXM. “An impressive performance by everybody. Lando was perfect, team strategy, pace of the car… Oscar , a shame we didn’t get him on the podium because I think he definitely had the pace for that but he couldn’t quite not be in dirty air with Russell early on and then of course Charles at the end, but they did a great job so a good day at the office. “I thought we had great pace. 23 seconds or whatever it was, no I didn’t think it was going to be that, but that was great to see. “Yeah we’ve thought for a few races, but it’s going to take a while. We’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing, and it’s going to be tight. But it’s game on.” With the Italian Grand Prix offering a very different test due to the low downforce demands of the circuit, Brown is also confident in McLaren’s developments that will run at Monza. “I think so . You never quite know what everyone else is going to do, but we’ve got our Monza tricks up our sleeves so hopefully they work like the rest of the upgrades that all the men and women at McLaren have been putting on this race car for the last couple of years.” Although frustrated to miss out on the podium on Sunday, Piastri also believes McLaren is in for an exciting final nine races given the pace it showed in Zandvoort. “I could tell once I got within about two seconds of Charles that it wasn’t going to be quite the same story as when I got past George,” Piastri said. “It worked with one car but not quite the other, so we’ll try again next weekend. “I think this weekend was just not as strong as it needed to be really from myself. Clearly the car has got a lot of pace, so I will try to make sure I capitalize on that a bit better, but I think it’s going to be a pretty fun second part of the year for us…”