Zak Brown nudges the door open for Verstappen–McLaren link: “Maybe one day”
Max Verstappen doesn’t need many invitations, but Zak Brown has just sent him one anyway. After the Red Bull star’s headline-making laps around the Nürburgring Nordschleife and a tidy run through the bureaucratic hoops to secure his Permit A, McLaren’s CEO joked he’d happily dial Verstappen up as an endurance teammate. Then, with a pause that did a lot of heavy lifting, he added: maybe more than that.
“I would love to have Max as my teammate in endurance racing, because he recently showed how fast he is there too, under a pseudonym, on the Nordschleife,” Brown told De Telegraaf. “Max is a great driver, a four-time champion for good reason… And with Max? Who knows, maybe one day.”
Brown’s quip lands because the timing is irresistible. Verstappen, who swept four straight F1 titles from 2021–24, reminded everyone at Monza why he’s still the standard, snapping McLaren’s run and keeping Red Bull’s pride intact. In parallel, he’s been moonlighting in GT machinery and has now ticked off the final admin to be eligible for the 2026 Nürburgring 24 Hours in a top-class GT3 car. The Nordschleife bug bites hard; Verstappen sounds very much bitten.
“I’m happy it all went smooth, and I got my DMSB Permit Nordschleife,” he said on his website after a mixed-conditions run that took in just about every flag imaginable. “It was good to drive stints in the race with traffic, both with faster and slower cars… To contest a 24-hour race here, in a GT3 car, would be amazing.”
That’s the endurance thread Brown is tugging. McLaren has firmed up plans to return to the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class in 2027, and he’s been open about wanting top-tier talent sprinkled across the programme. Verstappen has repeatedly said he doesn’t envision racing F1 forever, and he’s a self-professed endurance racing fan. The Venn diagram’s overlap is obvious.
And yet, the more electric implication sits in Formula 1. Verstappen has publicly tied himself to Red Bull into 2026, the year the new chassis and power unit rules arrive. It’s a brave new world for everyone, doubly so for Red Bull as it rolls out its first in-house power unit. If that goes smoothly, there’s no story. If it doesn’t, there’s always a story — and Brown has just positioned McLaren as the obvious alternative without actually saying so.
Right now, McLaren is the form team more weekends than not, its pit wall sharp and its driver pairing relentless. The papaya resurgence has been a masterclass in momentum — and a useful magnet for any star driver weighing the next chapter. You can shrug off the flirting as harmless, but this is how long games are played in the paddock: a wink here, a “maybe one day” there, and a list of possibilities quietly written for when the music stops.
Verstappen, for his part, is enjoying the side quests. The Nordschleife run — in the wet, the dry and the awkward in-betweens — sounded like therapy as much as training. “I’ve gained experience in where the grip is and isn’t and completed a start procedure,” he said. “The track surface also differs around the circuit, which makes it difficult to string a lap together, but it’s also what makes it special.”
The take-away? Brown didn’t just throw a compliment; he planted a flag. If Verstappen ever fancies a McLaren suit — in a Hypercar garage or on an F1 grid — the door is cracked. And in a sport that’s about to flip its technical script in 2026, you’d be brave to say never.
