Zak Brown felt optimistic about McLaren's prospects for the year as they started to perform well in the races leading up to the summer break. However, he admitted that the team's difficult start to the F1 season left him feeling "traumatised".
During pre-season and the initial races, McLaren faced significant challenges and even lost their technical boss, James Key, in March. The team's turning point was anticipated to be the introduction of upgrades at the Austrian Grand Prix, a prediction that ultimately proved correct.
Lando Norris achieved podium finishes at Silverstone and Budapest, and Oscar Piastri secured second place at the sprint race in Belgium.
Brown revealed, "There's a lot of pressure in this sport, especially given how poor we were at the start of the year. That's something I identified kind of at the summer break last year. I always say things feel a certain way before they look a certain way. I wasn't feeling good about what I was seeing the second half of last year. The thing that was challenging was things weren't feeling good in August and didn't look good in February. But actually by February, March, things were starting to feel good."
Despite Key's departure at the end of March, it's understood that the process for his exit had been initiated before the preseason. Team boss Andrea Stella, who previously stepped in after Andreas Seidl's departure, restructured the technical team, promoting individuals like Peter Prodromou internally, and welcoming newcomers David Sanchez from Ferrari and Rob Marshall from Red Bull in the future.
Brown implied that Key might have been inhibiting the progress of McLaren's technical team, stating, "When they were given the guidance and freedom and authority to do what they do best they delivered. Because really it's a lot of the same people who delivered the car at the start of the year who delivered the upgrades."
Brown also acknowledged Stella's role in energizing the existing talent within the team. He further explained, "The change is credit to Andrea for unblocking and refreshing and energising a lot of talent that we already had -- Pete Podromou, Neil Oatley, Piers Thynne, etcetera."
Considering McLaren's challenging start and Aston Martin's early success fading away during the summer, Brown expressed caution about setting overly ambitious expectations. Despite the belief that McLaren will likely remain the best of the rest behind the frontrunners, Brown said he is still wary due to the challenging memories from earlier in the year. He emphasized the importance of maintaining focus and avoiding the trap of making bold predictions prematurely.