Zak Brown quietly admits he would have fired Oscar Piastri

Speaking in court as he tries to squeeze every penny he possibly can from four-time IndyCar champion and reigning Indy 500 winner Alex Palou, McLaren CEO Zak Brown made several noteworthy statements surrounding the process in which he twice failed to secure Palou's services for the Woking-based team.

In 2022, Palou had a valid contract to compete with Chip Ganassi Racing through at least the 2023 season. Brown didn't care and tried to pry him free from that deal anyway, and had it been up to Palou, he would have gone through with it. But it wasn't, and Palou remained put behind the wheel of the No. 10 Honda, where he went on to win a second title in 2023.

He had, however, made up his mind to sign with McLaren for 2024. But later in 2023, he decided to go back on the deal. He has admitted that he breached a valid McLaren contract, and he has admitted on multiple occasions that he regrets how the whole process went down and that he knew he made a mistake in terms of how he handled it from start to finish.

The legal questions, at this point, are really about just how much McLaren are owed, because the two sides seem to be far apart on just how much money the team have actually lost because of Palou backing out on the deal and opting to remain with Ganassi's team, where he has continued to rack up championships and trophies.

What has always been interesting about the whole Palou-McLaren saga is that, to the average fan (and to the diehard, for what it's worth), it seems fairly obvious that Palou wouldn't merely ditch his Chip Ganassi Racing ride just to switch to a less consistent Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.

His eyes were always on a switch to Formula 1, and the consensus seems to be that he was misled about whether or not he truly had an opportunity to make that switch. But McLaren, particularly Brown, claim that they did not mislead him about that opportunity.

Timing, however, is everything. In July 2022, amid speculation that he would be sacked due to lack of performance, Daniel Ricciardo made a social media post that he was committed to seeing out the end of his McLaren Formula 1 contract (post-2023), even amid his struggles. At that point, little did he know that the decision had already been made to replace him a year early.

It wasn't until after that point when Palou announced that he intended to move from Chip Ganassi Racing to McLaren (importantly, he never mentioned the IndyCar team explicitly).

Would Alex Palou have gotten the McLaren seat?

But as we later found out through Oscar Piastri's rejection of Alpine announcing they had promoted him to their Formula 1 team, Piastri had already been promised the McLaren seat alongside Lando Norris for 2023.

That's where things get really interesting. Palou never had a real chance at Formula 1 in 2023, but he clearly believed that 2024 was a possibility, hence the decision to sign with McLaren – and then, of course, the decision to renege.

"I never strung along Alex," Brown said, according to GP Blog. "I never told him he would be under consideration for 2023 ... there was some optionality to join F1."

That optionality was obviously for 2024, and based on the timing outlined above, this does make sense. But here's the real kicker: Brown explained that Palou would have been given a full-time seat that year if Piastri had failed to deliver.

In 2023, Norris more than doubled Piastri's point tally, beating him 205 to 97. Would one season like that out of an F1 rookie and former Formula 2 champion have been enough for McLaren to give up on him and put Palou in the car?

We can't say for sure, but based on McLaren's history of impatience on the IndyCar side, which includes firing a driver before he ever made a start, firing his replacement driver just weeks after they confirmed him for the full-time ride, and making more driver changes within a 15-month span than Team Penske have over the past 15 years, you'd have to believe that was on the table.

And to add onto that, according to Palou, evidently Brown actually wanted Palou in the car for 2023, but team manager Andreas Seidl advocated for Piastri.

So yeah, Piastri likely would not have lasted in that seat until 2024.

It's an interesting point to consider, given the fact that Piastri has been ahead of Norris in the world championship standings for most of the 2025 season, as well as the fact that recent cracks in the armor have hinted, if not fully given away, that McLaren, Brown specifically, favor Norris over Piastri for the title.

Given Palou's recent sheer dominance in a spec series, it's hard not to rate him higher than both McLaren Formula 1 drivers. I get that F1 is considered the "pinnacle of motorsport" and its driver lineup, as a whole, is stronger than IndyCar's, but fans who only fall back on that argument when having this discussion clearly don't watch enough IndyCar to have that discussion.

Case in point, I had a fan recently tell me that IndyCar can't possibly be as hard as Formula 1 because "they only race on ovals". I'm not going to elaborate on that, because we all know what's wrong with that statement, and it has nothing to do with anybody's opinions.

But I digress, and at the end of the day, Palou is now under a long-term Ganassi contract with no apparent intention of ever trying to get out of it to sign elsewhere, and McLaren have an internal battle on their hands between two drivers seeking to win their first world championship, just two years after it looked like Norris was the clear No. 1 – that is, barring the once-presumed arrival of Palou.