Red Bull bring McLaren back down to earth: "Was fun while it lasted"

After having his drivers finish in P3 and P7 following Free Practice 1, Zak Brown spoke to Sky Sports to explain how the upgrades his drivers' have recieved are starting to pave the way to success for the McLaren team.

Straight up to speed for Oscar Piastri

After the success of the upgrades given to Lando Norris in Singapore which saw the Brit finish in second, that upgrades have now been put onto Norris' teammate's car as Oscar Piastri took to the track in Suzuka, Brown in very happy with the early signs of the pace the Australian has this weekend. "We upgraded Oscar's car last night, so it was good to see him get up to speed very quickly."

The American is quick to applaud his team on all the work they've been doing recently, as he's proud for it to all start to come together: "I feel like we've got a really competitive racing car now for the balance of the year because we've been to enough different types of tracks." mentioning later that "So to get them bolted on the car and seeing it work is just a testament to how good the team is doing, how confident they are in the design and development and manufacturing."

Red Bull still inducing fear after weak Singapore

Brown believes the McLaren will be competitive once again but still fears the Red Bull and Max Verstappen "I think we'll be competitive around here. Max backed the front again, so it was fun while it lasted." before continuing later with how the Red Bull dominance effects next years' car "I would imagine given Red Bull's dominance, they turned off their development quicker than others to focus on next year's car. So that's a bit scary what might be coming. The rest of us are continuing to chase, but the rules are pretty stable. So I think everything that we're learning now will apply to next year's car"