2026 British Grand Prix Friday press conference transcript

TEAM REPRESENTATIVES 
Zak BROWN (McLaren), Frédéric VASSEUR (Ferrari), Steve NIELSEN (Alpine)

Q: Zak, your team is at the centre of attention this week regarding driver rumours. What can you tell us about the chats you’ve been having with Max Verstappen and his team?
Zak BROWN: They’re rumours? No conversations. I usually don’t talk about my dinners but last night I had dinner with Nigel Mansell, which was really cool. He’s won this race a bunch. I’m very happy with my two racing drivers, Lando and Oscar, and I think any time a name like Max is thrown around everyone gets pretty excited. Four-time World Champion, but very happy with our driver line-up.
 
Q: So, if a move were to happen one day, it’s not going to be any time soon?
ZB: Correct.
 
Q: OK. What about performance, then? There was a bit of a dip last weekend in Austria. Do you understand why?
ZB: Yeah. Wasn’t really much of a dip. We’ve not been at the front and Austria was no different. Oscar had a very good race. Lando’s race wasn’t as good but we understand why. We don’t have much development on the car this weekend. We’ve got stuff coming but you’ve got to say Ferrari is doing an outstanding job. Red Bull took a nice step forward and, of course, Mercedes has been competitive from the word go. So, we have some work to do. We will catch up. I think we’ll be winning races this year, so quite optimistic for the future.
 
Q: So, in terms of the rest of the season, are you getting 2024 vibes? Do you think it could follow a similar pattern?
ZB: I hadn’t really thought about comparing it to any particular season but we’re a third of the way through, so we’ve seen over the last couple of years how much a championship can swing. So I think the Constructors’, I think the Drivers’ is open. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us but it looks like the top four teams will have, I think we’ll all win races this year, the field will tighten up, and we just need to get some more development on the car. We need to get the current Mercedes engine. We’re the only one without the new engine, which will be coming for us shortly. So I think when you put those all together, if we can find some tenths here and there, then hopefully we’ll be able to take it to Fred and company.
 
Q: How much of a frustration is it that you’re not running the latest-spec Merc here at Silverstone?
ZB: Yeah, of course we’d like to have it. Any time you have performance that you know is coming but you don’t have it on your car yet, you want to get it as quickly as possible. But I wouldn’t say it’s a frustration. It just is what it is and we just keep our head down and keep pushing hard and it’ll be in the back in not too long.
 
Q: Zak, final one for me. You talk about winning races. Can you put a timeline on that? When you look at your car, is there a particular racetrack where you’re going to be hopeful?
ZB: I don’t think it’s necessarily track-specific as much as all the hard work that the men and women at McLaren are doing, getting this bolted on the race car. So, I think in the next couple of races we should see a step forward. You don’t know what the other competition’s going to do. Fred upgrades his car every week and they’ve done a great job. I think it shows what you can do. And yeah, I’d like to think in and around the summer break we should be at the front of the field, but I don’t think it’s a track-specific thing.
 
Q: Zak, thank you very much for that. Fred, let’s come to you now. After the high of Barcelona, Lewis called Austria a reality check. What’s your take on Ferrari’s performance last weekend?
Fred VASSEUR: It was not a good race at all for us. I think the performance in quali was decent, that we had a good quali, even if Kimi would have been in front of us. But the race didn’t work at all and we work on it to try to avoid doing the same this weekend. But as Zak said, the field is tight. We are at the first stage of the development of the cars. It’s true for everybody. We have to understand the tyres and I think everybody is a bit more up and down than we were last year after five years with the same car and the same tyres, that we are still doing some mistakes on set-up, on tyre management, and it was much less the case last year. I think for me it’s the reason that you have evolution of results like this from one week to the other.
 
Q: What did you learn in Austria that could help you be more competitive in Silverstone?
FV: This I will keep it for me.
 
Q: OK. Now, look, can we talk about drivers? Lewis is clearly enjoying these 2026 cars, while Charles has found it hard to find his comfort zone. Where has he been struggling and what solutions are you putting in place to help?
FV: Yes, but I think your conclusion was the opposite after China, Japan. It’s not because you have two races at the top of your team-mate or two races, the next two races behind him, that it’s changing completely the picture. Charles is struggling the last two or three races probably a bit more with the set-up, but he was on the first row last week in Austria.
 
Q: How have you helped? Has he needed any help on a personal level?
FV: I think they all need to have support from the team and the team needs the support of the drivers. We are working as a team in every single circumstance. Even when you are in front, you support the driver and the driver is pushing the team.
 
Q: OK. Final one. Let’s talk upgrades. Zak referenced it a moment ago. You’ve been pushing hard with developments on the car. Tell us how hard it is to balance the introduction of upgrades with, of course, the budget cap.
FV: You are referring to the comments of Toto? I found it quite ironic from Toto, coming from Toto and Mercedes. When Red Bull is developing or when Mercedes is developing, they are genius. When we are developing, we are cheating. I think you have to calm down with this. We didn’t bring more parts than Red Bull or another one. I don’t know if it was a joke, but…
 
Q: Fred, do you think Toto was accusing you of cheating?
FV: If you think that we overshoot the cost cap, for me it’s… going into this direction.
 
Q: Fred, thank you very much. Steve, let’s come to you now. You’ve been riding the crest of a wave for much of this season, scoring points at every race until we got to Austria. Do you understand why the competitiveness dropped off last weekend?
Steve NIELSEN: Honestly, we weren’t fast enough. It’s simple. We did well at the first, I think, seven races. We got lucky a few times but we were always there or thereabouts in the mix of scoring points. And in Austria that just didn’t come. We didn’t qualify well enough, our starts weren’t good enough and our high-fuel pace was not good enough, which was disappointing because we had quite a big development on the car. We need to understand why it didn’t give us what we thought and we’re flat out doing that at the moment.
 
Q: So, I was going to say, what conclusions have you reached ahead of this weekend?
SN: Don’t race on tracks where it’s 60-degree track temp. Honestly, we’ve got a few things to try. Some of what happened in Austria was self-inflicted, to be honest, and we put that right for here. We tried two different set-ups in FP1 just now to give us a direction to try and confirm some of the stuff we think went wrong in Austria, and we’ve got a path to go there.
 
Q: OK. And when we look at the Constructors’ Championship this year, you have the top four teams and then there’s yourselves and Racing Bulls in particular, fighting tooth and nail just behind. How do you view that battle with Racing Bulls? You’re ahead at the moment. Do you think there’s enough of a buffer for the remainder of the season?
SN: No. We’re not even halfway through, are we? What is it? Ten, 11, 12 races left? No, there’s no way we can relax. It only takes a small, sort of chaotic race — we’ve had some of those already — and if Racing Bulls are ahead of us, they can collect big. I think the gap in points is something like 13, so that could change in a weekend. So no, we’re a long way from relaxing and we’re in a development war with them, with Racing Bulls. And I keep hearing stories that some of the other teams — Aston Martin, Williams — are also bringing big upgrades, so we’ll see. There’s an awful long way to go and we’re not taking anything for granted.
 
Q: OK. And on the topic of drivers, quickly. Pierre is locked in for next season. Franco is not. Is he doing enough?
SN: Well, everybody wants more. I think Franco is a driver that has been a slow starter, dare I say it. He’s getting better. He’s produced some good runs this year already. Miami was good. China was good. He’s improving. So I think he’s there on merit and when the time comes, we’ll make the decisions. If he’s good enough, he’ll stay, and if he’s not, then there’s a better option. That’s just Formula 1.
 
Q: In what areas has he improved the most?
SN: I think his consistency, particularly in races, is a lot better than it was and his ability to hang on to Pierre. He did a little bit of that last year but our car last year was so bad it was difficult to separate wheat from the chaff. But I think this year there’s been a few times where he’s been a match for Pierre and that’s good to see.
 
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
 
Q: (Craig Slater – Sky Sports) Question for Zak. You’re saying you haven’t got the upgraded Mercedes engine. Can you explain why that’s the case? Were there conversations with Mercedes? Why are you not able to take it?
ZB: You’ve got to cycle through your engines and we’ve got life left on our current engines, so we need to wait till we do an engine change. Williams got theirs because Carlos had his issues. He needed an engine change. I don’t recall exactly the scenario but I think you’ve got two of them. So, it’s just a timing sequence.
 
Q: Could you have requested it? You’d obviously need it here.
ZB: You’d want it as quickly as you can, but you need to run the cycles through the engines. Obviously, you can move things in and out, but we’ll have it soon. Hopefully next race?
 
Q: (Mara Sangiorgio – Sky Sports Italy) A question to Fred. Fred, considering Lewis’ best time and the good place you showed this morning, did you play with words yesterday that were totally on the fence?
FV: Let’s see after the quali when everybody will run with the same level of fuel and will push on the engine.
 
Q: (Mara Sangiorgio – Sky Sports Italy) Can we say that it was a surprise the time of this morning?
FV: No. We had a deficit last week on the engine side and we have the same engine this week. I’m not expecting that by magic we will be in front.
 
Q: (Ted Kravitz – Sky Sports F1) Having said that Fred, 20 years ago you won both GP2 races with Lewis around here. What would it mean to you to see him win at Silverstone for Ferrari?
FV: For Ferrari and for Fred, it’s different. It’s true that 20 years ago it was a good weekend. I think it’s the weekend where McLaren decided to put Lewis into the car the year after, the podium. And it’s true that it was quite an emotional one. For Ferrari and for everybody, I think to be back in Silverstone, I would say that it’s with the number of fans that we have this weekend, it’s something magic. Honestly, it’s unbelievable, the level of enthusiasm around the race. Even yesterday it was almost fully packed and it’s something special.
 
Q: (Jan Olejniczak – Eleven Sports) A question to Zak. What is McLaren’s main weakness at the moment? We’ve seen the upgrades you’ve introduced a few times this year, but they don’t seem to be working as well as you expected. For example, last time in Austria you brought the new rear wing and you didn’t even test it on track. Is everything all right with your development process?
ZB: Yes, it’s just we’ve not had the success with development this year that we’ve had the last couple of years. But as I said earlier, we’ve got some good stuff coming, but so does the rest of the field, I’m sure. We just lack some overall grip, some downforce. The car was a bit tricky for the guys to drive today. Oscar had it step out on him a few times, as did Lando. So we just need to make the car more drivable, and then we also need to continue to learn how to optimise the power unit. That’s still a big learning curve for us and for the sport, of how to best optimise what you have, since these power units are unique in their power delivery.
 
Q: (Mara Sangiorgio – Sky Sports Italy) A question to Zak. Could we have two Italian drivers on the grid next year? I’m asking you because Leonardo Fornaroli is one of your drivers. Are there some real possibilities?
ZB: Yeah, I think there are. He’s a great talent. He’s been doing some testing with us and hopefully he’ll secure an F1 seat. I think he’s definitely worthy of being in F1.
 
Q: (Leonid Kliuev – GrandePremio.com.br) Question for all three. Carlos proposed yesterday that any driver who causes a yellow or red flag in quali should receive a grid-drop penalty, recalling of course incidents that happened in the past in Monaco, for instance, and in Baku. What are your thoughts on that? Steve?
SN: I think it’s very difficult to do that. I understand why he’s asking for that but there are a myriad of different reasons why a yellow can be caused. Sometimes it’s not even that driver’s fault. And I think if you just go black and white and say, “If you cause a red flag, you get a penalty,” I think you’ll quickly run into it’s not as black and white as that.
FV: I’m not a big fan. Imagine that sometime in Q3 you do only one lap, if they cancel your lap, at the end of the day you start from the back. It means that it’s a bit harsh and the game in quali is to push at the limit. Sometimes you are over the limit, but I don’t think that we have to penalise the guys who are pushing.
ZB: Probably a little bit different. Conceptually, I get his comments and conceptually kind of agree that if a driver causes a yellow, hurts other people’s qualifying, that they potentially don’t get a penalty, whether that’s a grid drop or you lose your fastest lap. But in IndyCar they do. If you cause a yellow, you lose, I think it’s your fastest lap, or you lose five minutes of qualifying. There’s some sort of penalty. But to Steve’s point, it’s never quite as black and white. So I think probably difficult to come up with the right regulation to accomplish that, but I get where Carlos doesn’t feel right that someone can mess up the rest of the field and keep what maybe benefited them.
 
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Fred, a question for you. Just on the Toto comments, have you had a chance to talk to Toto at all? Are you at all disappointed? I know you guys are quite good friends away from the track. Or is this a case where friendship doesn’t really come into it?
FV: I think it was better to avoid to speak.
 
Q: (Graham Harris – MotorsportMonday.com) There’s starting to be talk in the paddock again about a 12th team, various people putting deals together. As team principals of the three most established teams around, how would you view a 12th team? Is there room for it? Do you want it? Or should they be looking to buy an existing team?
ZB: I haven’t thought about it. I guess if I want to give it two seconds of thought, you’ve got operational issues with some of the circuits, whether they could have the capacity. Ultimately, it’s up to the FIA and Formula 1. I think, like before, you just want to make sure the economic balance is right, but I don’t really have a strong view one way or another, nor do I have a vote. So, you just lean on the FIA and Formula 1 to ultimately make that decision. If they think it’s good for the sport, then let’s have a 12th team. If they think it’s not, we’ll stay with what we’ve got.
FV: Nothing to add.
SN: I think it slightly depends who it is, but Zak’s comments are all right.
 
Q: (Jon Noble – The Race) Fred, a lot of teams have been aggressive with upgrades this season so far. Why do you think Toto singled you out and do you think you’ve got efficiency to be able to keep up this rate for the whole season?
FV: Jonathan, if you have to ask something to Toto, go to Toto, ask him why he spoke about me. Don’t ask me the question. But honestly, I have no clue and I found it a bit weird. Because I think the more performance you can bring at the beginning, we are all in December, if we can bring something at the beginning we do it, and it’s better to have a couple of tenths for five races than a couple of tenths for the last two. But sometimes it’s difficult to find performance, sometimes a bit less. Sometimes you can have the feeling that we are bringing a big upgrade but this is just a modification of some parts, nothing else.
 
Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) A question for Fred. Lewis is obviously having a strong season. Have talks started over a contract extension with him? And he’ll be 42 next year. Just wondering how much longer do you think he can continue to drive for Ferrari?
FV: Who spoke about the extension? OK, I will discuss with him for the extension, with everybody. He is still under contract with us and it’s not time to discuss about an extension.
 
Q: (LA Wilshaw – Top Speed) Fred, just wondering, with Lewis 46 points ahead of Charles and faster today in practice, potentially there may only be 10 races left of this season after this weekend, are you going to consider favouring one side of the garage soon? And if so, will you give team orders?
ZB: Charles gets all the upgrades!
FV: And the engine of Zak. No.
 
Q: (Adam Cooper – Adam Cooper F1) One for all three of you. There’s obviously still some uncertainty over the calendar for the rest of this year. One extreme, we could get Bahrain back in September. The other, we could lose the two races at the end of the year and maybe have an extra one in Europe. What sort of challenges does that uncertainty present to you in terms of managing the cost cap and logistics and so on? And do you have commercial contracts that are linked to having a minimum of 21, 22 races, things like that?
ZB: Yeah, I think ultimately Stefano and the FIA are going to work through the calendar, so we’ll race what they tell us we’re racing and we’ll be happy to do that. I think we all have the same challenge as far as kind of managing through that, and then our partners are all understanding the calendar’s quite big, so it doesn’t really present any commercial issues from that point of view.
FV: Honestly, I think we are all in the same boat, between teams, FOM and FIA. We all want to go to races and we all want to race again and more, but it is like it is. We have huge trust in the FIA and FOM on the calendar. They are working hard to find solutions and I’m really convinced that they are doing the best.
SN: Yes, nothing to add really. I’m sure they’ve got a myriad of versions of the calendar and they’ll go for whichever one world events allow them to do.
 
Q: (Christian Menath – Motorsport-Magazin.com) Another one for you, since you are enjoying upgrade talk so much. Do you think the problem is the submission list we get on Friday. This this one can be a bit misleading, because some teams declare a diffuser and floorboards and whatever as a single upgrade and some just put them as one as a floor update.
FV: Well, if you have an idea for the next regulation, it’s welcome. The FIA is asking us to declare what we are changing as a shape on parts but not the details. And we are doing it for you, to give you something to write or to say. Now, if you don’t want to get it, that’s another story. We can stop. But honestly, sometimes it’s starting to take proportion a bit… I won’t say the word.
 
Q: (Thomas Maher – PlanetF1.com) For Zak, please. Zak, I know you’ve ruled out Max as a potential for a seat. You’re saying there’s no seat available for him. But if Max is shopping around, what do you believe McLaren could offer him that he’s not getting at Red Bull? What would tempt him about McLaren?
ZB: I haven’t really thought about that because I’ve got two drivers in the seats. So, what I couldn’t offer him was a seat in my race car. But I think McLaren’s an awesome team. So is Red Bull, and so is Alpine, and so is Ferrari. The Formula 1 teams are amazing. I think we’ve got a unique environment, but as do all race teams. But we’ve got a great race team that’s had a lot of success, and I think it’s a good place to work, whether you’re a racing driver or a team principal or a mechanic, or whatever you may be at Team McLaren.
 
Q: (Shanna Lutgert – GPblog.com) Question for Zak, another one on the upgrades. I’m sorry. You already made a cheeky comment about Fred’s car but looking at Red Bull’s upgrade strategy, and also Mercedes, and also yourself and Ferrari’s, how are you comparing them also going into this summer break?
ZB: Ferrari and Red Bull have been very, very close. If you look at the list, and as Fred said, it doesn’t necessarily always give you a clear story, but I think Ferrari and Red Bull have done a fantastic job with their upgrades. We’ve done a fantastic job with their upgrades. We’re a little bit behind. I think it’s very early in the season to draw conclusions because you don’t know when everyone’s going to deploy their upgrades. So hopefully we’ll have as many as Ferrari has and you don’t know when their next one’s coming. So I think the whole story is a bit early in the year because, as Fred said, you deploy them when they’re ready. They got them ready earlier than ours. We have just as many upgrades coming, we just haven’t put them on the race car yet because they’re not quite at the level that we’d like it to be before we produce the parts. Clearly Ferrari and Red Bull have done a fantastic job.
 
Q: (Nigel Chiu – Sky Sports) Question to Zak, sorry Zak. It’s a question about Max. Just how serious were the talks last week? How far did they get? Where did it go?
ZB: They didn’t go anywhere. I’ve got my two drivers, so there’s nothing to report.
 
Q: (Simon Abberley – Navis Radio) A question for Fred. Obviously there’s been a lot of talk about upgrades on the Ferrari, as the car is performing quite well so far this season, and you’ve got PU2 coming up before Monza. Is the big push to have Ferrari at the front for the home Grand Prix for yourselves?
FV: You are more informed than me on the timing of the upgrade on the engine. It’s always good to come to the press conference to get information. But for sure it will be a push when we will introduce the next engine. But it’s too early to know when we will do it. First, because as Zak said, you have to bring upgrades when you are improving the performance, and on the engine side the lead time is much longer than on the chassis side. But I have nothing else to say.
 
Q: (Lewis Larkam – Crash.net) Fred, sorry to keep going on about your favourite subject, on upgrades, but just going back to that, does it give you any satisfaction that your rivals are talking about Ferrari and perhaps being a bit annoyed about what you’re doing? Does that show the good job that your team is doing?
FV: Yes, sure. But keep in mind the comments after Austria, OK? After Barcelona we are at the top, after Austria we are nowhere, after FP1, where you don’t know the level of fuel of the other teams, the upgrades are magic. You just have to stay calm with this. I think we are at the beginning of the car. We have still a lot of room of performance in the set-up, in the tyre management, and sometimes much bigger than the upgrade that we are bringing. It means that sometimes you can bring an upgrade, the upgrade is working, but you are doing a mistake on the set-up and you are out of the pace. We just have to stay calm.
 
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Zak, just to clarify on the Mercedes engine situation, did you request to have it in the car here, the updated version?
ZB: I don’t believe we did but that would actually be an Andrea question. But I don’t think so. Did we, Luca? We didn’t.
 
Q: (Jake Nichol – RacingNews365.com) Question for you, Zak. How much of an asset do you think the upcoming Le Mans Hypercar project is? And is that something attractive to F1 drivers potentially?
ZB: I think the impact it has is for our fans. It’s quite exciting to be racing in the Triple Crown. It’s exciting for our sponsor partners, gives them opportunity to dial in and out of, you know, Formula 1, or you want a little bit more America, you can join our IndyCar team. Sports cars get closer to our automotive business. So I think it’s really more a benefit for the fans and the partners than it is the Formula 1 team per se. That being said, we have partners in IndyCar that have come across and sponsored us in Formula 1, so Formula 1 will see the benefit in that sense. But technically they’re two totally separate racing teams and disciplines, so there’s no benefit there.
 
ENDS