Zak Brown 'got the info needed' after surprising Max Verstappen phone call

Zak Brown has revealed he "got the information needed" after a phone call with Max Verstappen's manager earlier this year. It emerged that McLaren CEO Brown had called Raymond Vermeulen, ostensibly to discuss Verstappen's contract, although the world champion himself later joked that Brown quickly ended the call when told the figures involved in his Red Bull contract. McLaren would later re-sign Oscar Piastri to a long-term deal as Brown explained what he was up to with the call to Vermeulen. "Oh yes, that phone call," Brown recalled to de Telegraaf. "It is up to me to explore the market to know what is going on. At the time, I was also negotiating with my own driver in Oscar Piastri. "I had to be able to assess whether a stone might fall elsewhere, resulting in a domino effect, it could have sparked interest in my driver. "That is why I contacted [Verstappen], and let me put it this way, during the phone call, I got exactly the information I needed." Brown also hopes that Verstappen does not move to Mercedes, given the track record of the engines it can produce, with the big rules reset coming into force for 2026. "I look at Mercedes' track record and body language when it comes to engines," he said. "They seem very confident about it. If you ask me to look at the current situation, I would rather see Max driving for Red Bull than Mercedes."