With Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, McLaren boasts an incredibly young drivers’ lineup. Zak Brown gives this, while speaking on the Track Limits podcast, as one of the reasons why the Woking-based team is not investing too much in their young drivers’ program.
“Because we have two young drivers, we don’t wanna have too many young drivers stacked up. Because if all goes according to the plan. We won’t have the room for them,” said Brown.
Brown further labels a few prospects rising from McLaren’s academy ladder. However, he maintains that he wants McLaren to have a small pool of drivers maybe around 2-3 drivers in different stages of their career.
Unlike McLaren, other teams surely made large pools of talent in their system. Red Bull currently boasts six drivers on the current grid, who graduated from their academy. A different approach by two rivals towards the young talent available.
However, even Red Bull has realized that they would need to crop their talents participating in Formula 2. Every year, the Milton-Keynes-based side funnels a set of F2 drivers into the competition. However due to limited opportunities in Formula 1 lately, Red Bull has decided to branch out its prospects in different series.
Nevertheless, McLaren’s current duo despite being young is very formidable. In 2024 they would be playing a crucial role in achieving the Woking-based team’s objectives.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri: All that McLaren needs
In 2023, when McLaren saw a steep upward trajectory in their car’s abilities, both Norris and Piastri gave incredible performances to bring their team to the constant podium finishes.
Their consistent outputs allowed their team to finish P4 in the standings, despite having a poor string of performances up until Austria. So much so that Max Verstappen called the duo the best lineup on the grid.
“Oscar Piastri has really sharpened Lando Norris up”
With their strong driver liner-up, could we see more McLaren papaya on the podium in 2024? pic.twitter.com/Z9kglcCKB5
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) December 10, 2023
Now in 2024, McLaren surely has better ambitions and would want to go for the wins. Norris would be anticipating to hear his national anthem getting played because of his efforts. But Red Bull would surely be a team that would continue its relentless reign.
So, it remains to be seen how much progress McLaren will make in the following months before the new cars hit the tarmac for testing.
