Zak Brown believes Lando Norris has bought into the changes McLaren have made; the team sacked technical director James Key and have altered their leadership structure; watch the Australian GP live on Sky Sports F1 this weekend, with Sunday's race live at 6am
Saturday 1 April 2023 01:49, UK
McLaren chief Zak Brown has revealed Lando Norris does not have an exit clause from his contract and believes the Briton will be "along for the journey" as the team look to improve.
The 23-year-old has established himself as one of most highly-rated drivers in the sport but he is yet to claim a race win, and looks further away than ever from doing so with McLaren struggling at the start of the 2023 season.
Having signed a contract extension in February 2022, Norris is tied to the team until the end of the 2025 campaign, but his future remains a major talking point with McLaren's woes continuing.
Despite near-constant chatter surrounding Norris' future, McLaren chief executive Brown insists the driver's current focus is on the team's goal to build a "championship winning car" over the next two years.
"He has zero exit clauses," Brown told Sky Sports F1 on Thursday in Melbourne ahead of this weekend's Australian Grand Prix.
"Ultimately, when his contract is next up, if we are not performing and he doesn't feel he can win races and can compete for the championship, then I think anybody, driver or team member for that matter [would be considering leaving], we are all here to win.
"He has got a contract with us and, most importantly, he is very happy here and he sees the progress that we are making, and he is a team player.
"So, even contracts aside, it is about that he is in a happy environment, he is along for the journey, and we have got some time to prove to him that we are going to give him a car capable of winning.
"Right now it is pretty easy but if we are sitting here in two years' time and his contract is nearing the end, then it is a different situation if we are not performing and I would understand him going 'I need to get into a winning race car'.
"But, right now, I think we are all focused on working together to get that car so I think it is too early to be worried about anything other than having a good weekend."
Brown also praised Norris' rookie team-mate Oscar Piastri, who will make his home F1 debut at Albert Park.
"I am very happy with our driver line-up. I think Lando has a tremendous amount of experience," Brown added. "It is now his fifth season which is crazy to think given how young he is.
"Oscar looks to be a sensational rookie and we are very excited and he did a great job in Saudi and he has done through testing.
"I think our driver line-up is one of our big strengths right now and I am excited to all work together to give them the car that they need to get to the front because I think we have two drivers who are championship calibre."
The renewed vision at McLaren to build "a winning race car" comes off the back of structural changes, with executive technical director James Key departing and three new specialised technical director roles introduced, all reporting directly to team principal Andrea Stella.
The technical executive team will include Peter Prodromou, who has been promoted into the role of technical director of aerodynamics, David Sanchez, who will be responsible for the car concept and performance after a decade with Ferrari, and Neil Houldey, who has been with McLaren since 2006, and is promoted into the newly-created role of technical director of engineering and design.
Despite the shake-up being perceived by many as a response to a poor start to the season, Brown insists they are changes that have long been in the works.
"I would characterise the start of the year as things aren't as bad as they look, but not as good as they should be," Brown added.
"We had some issues in testing for a second year in a row, which is unacceptable.
"Bahrain, we weren't nearly as competitive as we would like to be. We had two technical issues, one within our control, one not.
"Then in Saudi, we were pretty competitive in practice and qualifying. Lando had a small and unusual incident for him and Oscar had a great qualifying run, which was great to see how competitive he is.
"So, that means the changes are not in response to a poor start to the year, they actually date back to the second half of last year when I saw some things I wasn't happy with.
"The progression of our race car and our performance, we had a team principal change, and then as soon as Andrea started, who is very technical, the first thing I asked him to do was review where we were and why we weren't performing at a higher level.
"He set about doing a lot of consulting and fortunately he had been with the team for some time and ultimately he decided we needed a new model and so we went forward with putting that in place.
"We announced it last week, but these things are always a little bit in the works."
A lot of faith is being placed into Stella but, for Brown, his technical ability coupled with his "rich racing history" leaves no doubt he is the best man for the job.
"He has got a lot of great qualities. One, he already knows what winning looks like," Brown said.
"He has got a rich history with some of the best racing drivers in the world.
"He is very much a people culture driven individual so he really knows how to rally a team and we are a big team of people and he is very technical.
"So, I thought he had the best combination of technically understanding what changes we needed to make and how to bring a high performance team together.
"We are at the start of that journey of Andrea's vision which I fully support and there is a lot of excitement inside the racing team."
Watch the Australian Grand Prix live on Sky Sports F1 this weekend, with Sunday's race live at 6am. Get Sky Sports
