Zak Brown pulled no punches in his end-of-season McLaren speech.

Zak Brown gave a brutally cheeky speech to McLaren staff (Image: Getty)

The Alpine F1 team and Stoffel Vandoorne were among those to catch heat from McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown as the American executive’s no-punches-pulled speech was made public on social media.

After travelling to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to receive their World Championship trophies at the FIA prize-giving gala, Brown travelled back to Woking with drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to celebrate the team’s achievements with the McLaren staff.

During their homecoming event, Brown gave a bold speech, in which he mocked former F1 midfield rivals Alpine and one of McLaren’s former drivers. Singling out his incumbent racers, the 54-year-old started his dig.

“We took big risks on both of you, and don’t pretend you had better options!” he said, turning to face his drivers. “You [Piastri] had f**king Alpine, and you [Norris] had to go faster than Stoffel Vandoorne!” The joke provoked laughter from the crowd of McLaren employees.

Brown’s unexpected dig at Vandoorne relates to the 2018 season, in which the Belgian racer, who won the 2015 GP2 Series title, scored points on just four occasions, finishing 16th in the standings. He was dropped for Norris the following year.

The McLaren Racing CEO also jibed: “I couldn’t dream of having a better driver lineup on and off the track. Two fastest guys in the world and nicest. That’s the McLaren way. Proper racers like us, which stands for how we race. You guys are almost a unicorn combo. Then again, maybe we’ll be up here next year saying, ‘f**k that guy!’

Even poor Stoffel Vandoorne (left) caught some heat from Brown (Image: Getty)

“Anyways… [it] won’t come to that. Both drivers love me, idolise me, and call me ‘Big Daddy’ behind my back. Reality is they’ll mess with me, but they won’t mess with Andrea [Stella] ‘cause, deep down inside, they’re scared s**tless of Andrea [Stella].”

Brown and McLaren are justified in enjoying their current success. While the papaya squad and Norris will head into the first year of the new technical regulations as the reigning world champions, it will be challenging for them to defend their crowns, given the unpredictable changes to the pecking order that are being anticipated.

Stella, however, is confident. “The technical team at McLaren is particularly strong, we can benefit from the contribution of Peter Prodromou, Rob Marshall, Neil Houldley, Giuseppe Pesce, Mark Temple,” he said. “I think from this point of view, this is one of the strongest technical departments that I could have been part of in my career, 26 years in Formula One.

“And this means that while the specifics of the current regulations will not necessarily apply onto the future, the working way, the standards, the approach to the development of the car, to the objectives from a technical point of view, they do carry into the future. And this makes us optimistic for the 2026 season.”