Brown "well aware of 2007" but won't change approach

Brown was referring to the battle between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, who were McLaren teammates in 2007 and fought relentlessly and without any bounds at some point, with then-team boss Ron Dennis unable to manage the situation properly while favoring Hamilton, his protégé.

As a result, Raikkonen sneaked into the fight and took the Title by one point, scoring 110 points while Hamilton and Alonso were both on 109.

With Lando Norris now leading Oscar Piastri by one point heading into this weekend's Sao Paulo Grand Prix with Max Verstappen in their rearview mirrors, the 2025 F1 Drivers' Title fight may end up being a copy of what went down in 2007, with the Dutchman claiming a fifth consecutive crown as the McLaren teammates continue to fight each other, with Brown claiming they will not back one driver over the other with four races remaining.

Speaking to the Beyond the Grid podcast, Brown was asked about his reaction if Verstappen beats his drivers to the F1 Championship; he responded: "I shake his hand and say, ‘job well done’.

"I want to make sure if we don’t win, he beats us. We don’t beat ourselves—that’s important," he added and went on: “We’re well aware of 2007. Two drivers tied on points; one gets in the front.

"But we’ve got two drivers who want to win the World Championship. We’re playing offense; we’re not playing defense.

“I’d rather go, ‘we did the best we can on our drivers tied in points and the other beat us by one’, than the alternative which is telling one of our drivers right now, when they’re one point away from each other, ‘I know you have a dream to win the world championship but we flipped the coin and you don’t get to do it this year’. Forget it!

“That’s not how we go racing. In the event that 2007 happens again, I’d rather have that outcome than all the other outcomes by playing favorites—we won’t do it," Brown concluded.

And it seems Brown is on the same page with Stella, who went even further in his explanation, projecting a family feel and approach on the McLaren driver situation.

Stella said: "If Max is the champion at the end of the year, for us, the important thing is that we can say we have done our best and we have done our best according to the way we go racing.

“And if Max wins this year, we say we’re going to win next year, we’re going to be there and we are going to be united as we are.

"So when you are in my role, it’s like when you have two sons and somebody says, 'which one is your preferred son?' Yeah, but they are my two sons, how can you say which one is the preferred one?

"Sometimes when I hear or read some comments of this kind, I find them really very superficial and just like, I think sometimes people don’t really understand what it means to have two drivers that are with you together in this journey in Formula 1.

"I just feel very grateful to both," the Italian concluded.

While Brown and Stella are always insisting that they are not backing any driver over his teammate, there is a wide consensus that Norris is the one they want to win the Championship, and the manner in which they are managing their drivers doesn't in any way prove otherwise.