Wheatley reveals Zak Brown apology over Austin sprint crash: ‘We sorted it out’
In the space of a few fast-moving Austin hours, Zak Brown went from calling “amateur hour” at Turn 1 to shaking Nico Hülkenberg’s hand on the grid and firing off apologies to Sauber boss Jonathan Wheatley.
Saturday’s United States Grand Prix sprint unraveled immediately at the uphill hairpin, where light contact between Hülkenberg and Oscar Piastri set off a chain reaction. Piastri, Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso were all wiped out before they’d even hit the brakes a second time, while Hülkenberg escaped with front-wing damage. Brown’s first instinct, live on the pit wall, was to defend his drivers and put the blame squarely on the Sauber.
By Sunday, the tone had shifted. Brown revised his verdict, accepted Hülkenberg wasn’t the culprit, and — crucially — reached out.
“Zak sent me an apology really quickly afterwards and he apologised personally to Nico,” Wheatley told media, including PlanetF1.com. “This is a passionate sport. I love the passion. You’ve got two cars, you’re fighting for a world championship and your two cars get taken out of the first corner. It’s easy to think that it’s somebody else’s fault sometimes and you react with passion.
“I think he probably did that in the heat of the moment and the emotion. But I’ve known Zak a really long time. He’s a racer, we’re all racers and we sorted it out afterwards.”
The apology was matched by optics on Sunday: Brown and Hülkenberg were seen sharing a friendly handshake on the grid. No theatrics, no lingering frost — just two paddock stalwarts moving on.
And it was a weekend Hülkenberg deserved to keep clean. The German qualified a superb fourth for the sprint, then converted Sunday into eighth place in the Grand Prix — his first points since that headline-grabbing maiden podium at the British Grand Prix in July. For a driver who’s ridden a stiff wave of scrutiny over the past two months, it was an important reminder.
“For Nico, what an incredible race weekend altogether,” Wheatley said. “All the people that had criticism about him, his qualifying performance, various other criticisms over the last few months, I think you’ve probably got a reason to have another look at that. He was just flawless from the very first lap in FP1.
“You can’t help but wonder what the sprint would have brought if there wasn’t that incident at Turn 1. I’m fairly sure we’d have had some serious points out of that as well. And then on race day, look at him. He just drove a flawless race again. I couldn’t be more happy for him and for the team.”
The bigger picture here? It’s rare for team bosses to publicly row back in the middle of a white-hot title fight. Brown’s fast pivot felt like good paddock politics and, frankly, the right read after a chaotic opening corner where several drivers converged on one tight apex with very little margin. That Hülkenberg kept his head down and answered on Sunday only underlined Wheatley’s point.
For McLaren, the sprint wipeout hurt. They lost both cars in one sweep, and with margins tight at the sharp end in 2025, that’s a chunk of opportunity gone. But there’s a line between defending your drivers in the moment and letting a mistaken narrative linger. Brown didn’t do the latter. He took a breath, made the calls, and cleared the air.
No grudges carried, points banked for Sauber, and a reminder that behind the headsets and sound bites, the people running these teams are racers first — capable of emotion, correction and, when it matters, a handshake.
