Brown: We have a number of cards up our sleeve for Monza

Lando Norris’ victory at Zandvoort and Oscar Piastri’s points for 4th place allowed McLaren to significantly reduce the gap to Red Bull Racing in the Constructors’ Championship, although Max Verstappen is still far ahead of the Briton in the individual standings.

But everything will depend on the further development of the events in any case, because there are still nine races to go, and if McLaren continues to gain strength and Red Bull can do nothing to stop it, the picture could change quickly.

“Yes, we thought about the possibility of fighting for the championship win a few races ago,” confirms Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing. “But it will take some time, but for now we have to continue with what we are doing. The competition promises to be fierce, but we are already in the race.”

The nature of the classic Monza circuit, with its long straights requiring minimum downforce settings, is very different to Zandvoort, but Brown has no doubts his team will be able to perform with confidence this coming weekend.

“I think our car should be fast there too,” he continued. “You never know what actions your opponents will take, but we have a number of tricks up our sleeve for Monza and we hope that they will be no less effective than the other technical innovations that our team has created over the last two years.

I think our car is very fast now, that’s for sure. Because Monza is a very different type of circuit, where a very low level of downforce is needed, we are bringing some interesting solutions there. In general, we will be ready for the Italian Grand Prix, although I think that in Monza the Red Bull cars will be very fast, because they show very good results on high-speed circuits.’

Going into the Italian leg of the championship, McLaren are 30 points behind Red Bull Racing in the Constructors’ Championship, and in the Individual Championship Norris is 70 points behind Verstappen.