Zak Brown takes fresh aim at Red Bull: ‘A one-man empire’ built around Verstappen
Zak Brown has never been shy about poking the Red Bull bear. His latest swipe leaves little to interpretation: in his view, Max Verstappen runs the place — and everyone else falls in line.
In passages from his new book, Seven Tenths of a Second, McLaren’s chief executive paints a picture of a team in thrall to its superstar driver. Brown suggests Red Bull’s RB21 is so tightly tailored to Verstappen’s preferences that it’s become difficult for anyone else to extract comparable performance. He argues the team selection reflects that mindset too, pointing to last year’s decision not to pursue Carlos Sainz for 2025 as a missed chance that conveniently avoided internal friction.
It’s a provocative take, but it lands at a fascinating moment. Verstappen, the four-time world champion who has racked up a scarcely believable 58 wins since 2021, is on course to relinquish his crown. With the final triple-header looming in Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, Lando Norris leads the championship by 24 points over McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, with Verstappen sitting third, 49 points adrift of Norris.
That’s the competitive context. The political backdrop is just as spicy. Red Bull sacked Christian Horner after the British Grand Prix, a staggering end to more than two decades at the helm, and installed Laurent Mekies as chief executive and team principal. The leadership shock only intensified the paddock’s favorite 2025 pastime: reading tea leaves about Verstappen’s future. The Mercedes rumors for 2026 refused to go away. Verstappen publicly distanced himself from any role in Horner’s exit, but Brown’s broader contention is simpler — Red Bull will do whatever it takes to keep their franchise driver content.
“Terrified” might be too strong a word for Red Bull to accept, but Brown uses it anyway. The accusation is that the team has become, in effect, a “one-man team,” an “own little empire” built around a generational talent. He’s not condemning Verstappen’s brilliance — few have managed a peak like his over the past four seasons — he’s taking aim at the structure around him.
There’s a pragmatic counterpoint Red Bull loyalists will make: the sport’s history is littered with examples of teams shaping machinery around their driver of destiny. Ferrari did it with Schumacher. Mercedes, at times, with Hamilton. When you’ve got a driver capable of carrying a title bid on his back, you lean in. Results defend the method.
But the wins are thinner on the ground in 2025. While Verstappen has still scored the overwhelming majority of Red Bull’s points this season, his teammates have struggled to live in his zip code in the RB21 — and that’s precisely the circular logic Brown is attacking. If the car is designed to fit one man like a glove, how surprised can we be if no one else is comfortable wearing it?
For Brown, it’s also about ethos. McLaren’s resurgence under his watch, and under Andrea Stella’s calm, clinical race-day management, has been built on competitive tension, not a pecking order. Norris and Piastri are pushing each other to the wire without obvious team-imposed ceilings. That’s not necessarily altruism; it’s a bet that two drivers fighting at the peak of their powers produces the highest ceiling for the team.
Will his commentary unsettle Red Bull? Hardly. Verstappen doesn’t tend to blink at outside noise. And whatever turbulence followed Horner’s departure, Red Bull still know how to operate on a Sunday. The bigger question is whether this season forces a philosophical rethink in Milton Keynes. If you’re no longer the outright benchmark and your star is under contract but constantly courted, does doubling down on a one-driver model still make competitive sense?
The final run-in may sharpen the narrative. If Norris closes this out — with Piastri snapping at his heels — the industry will eyeball McLaren’s open-fight model as a viable blueprint going into 2026. If Verstappen conjures a late miracle, the lesson will look familiar: when you have a unicorn, you feed it.
Brown, unsurprisingly, prefers the first story. He insists McLaren won’t be organized around fear or favoritism. Whether that’s a well-aimed philosophical jab or just effective brand positioning, it’s timely. The sport’s balance of power is shifting. And with three races to decide the title, the sharpest weapons might be culture and clarity as much as raw speed.
