Zak Brown turns the heat on Verstappen: “too aggressive” at times, Hamilton felt it most
Zak Brown isn’t shy about a nudge in the paddock, and this one’s aimed straight at Max Verstappen. McLaren’s CEO says the Red Bull star’s elbows-out approach sometimes tips over the line, with Lewis Hamilton — now in Ferrari red — taking the brunt of it over the years.
“I don’t want to disparage Max… he’s a four-time world champion,” Brown told the Telegraph, before adding the part that will light up every team briefing from Woking to Milton Keynes: “He can be a bruiser, too aggressive on track. His arrogance comes out.”
That last line isn’t new to anyone who’s watched Verstappen since he muscled his way into F1’s elite. His racecraft is ferocious and largely razor-clean. It’s also polarizing, because it squeezes rivals into decisions they don’t want to make, and, on occasion, into run-off.
Brown’s not pretending this is a fresh discovery. He went straight for the archive: Interlagos. “In Brazil against Lewis Hamilton over time,” he said, citing a handful of moves he felt went too far. The 2021 scrap at Turn 4 is the one everyone remembers — both cars wide, both drivers sending a message. Twelve months later, they clashed at the same track again. Long memories are common currency in F1; Brown’s simply cashed his.
If that sounds like opportunistic mind games from a boss whose drivers are trading blows with Verstappen in 2025, it also echoes views from inside Red Bull’s own history. Adrian Newey, speaking on the High Performance Podcast about the fevered end to 2021, suggested Verstappen was feeling the squeeze as the hunted and “was probably lucky not to get a penalty” in Brazil. Newey framed it as the intensity of that run-in with Hamilton after Silverstone and Hungary — the kind of pressure that redefines a title fight.
Brown, for his part, didn’t paint Verstappen as a villain. He wrapped it in context that every multiple world champion shares some swagger-to-arrogance ratio. “They get their elbows out,” he said, and he’s right — greats do. But he also knows where the line is for his team.
McLaren’s resurgence has put Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the thick of it in 2025, trading weekends with Red Bull and forcing the title conversation to broaden beyond one garage. Which makes Brown’s timing deliberate. He’s not just critiquing Verstappen; he’s setting the ground rules for what’s acceptable when orange meets blue on the apex, and pre-loading the argument should a stewarding debate break out on a Sunday night.
Verstappen, a four-time champion per the 2025 entry list, has built his empire by being exactly who he is on track — decisive, implacable, occasionally ruthless. Hamilton, now spearheading Ferrari’s push after his switch for 2025, knows that better than anyone. Their personal cold war carried from Silverstone to Saudi to Brazil, and it won’t be lost on the seven-time champ that Brown’s comments hand Ferrari some useful political cover if the old rivalry sparks up again this season.
There’s a bigger point in all of this: Formula 1 is still calibrating the boundaries of hard racing in this era. The stewards’ bar has shifted subtlety year to year, and drivers — particularly the ones at the sharp end — will always test it. Verstappen lives on that edge because that’s where lap time and intimidation live. Sometimes it’s breathtaking. Sometimes it’s messy. Often it’s both.
Brown’s choice to go public is classic paddock chess. Praise the champion, jab the champion, remind the room that your boys won’t be bullied, and, if you’re lucky, plant a seed in the race directors’ heads before the next late-brake lunge. He’s not wrong that champions carry arrogance. The trick is using it without letting it use you.
What happens next? The same thing that always happens. Verstappen will drive as Verstappen drives. Hamilton will meet him there, now in red. Norris and Piastri will try to steal their lunch. And everyone will argue about who crossed which line on Monday.
Because for all the talk, Formula 1’s truth is still written at turn-in.
