‘Hopefully he’ll secure a seat’ – Brown tips McLaren reserve Fornaroli as ‘worthy of being in F1’

Zak Brown has expressed his confidence that McLaren reserve driver Leonardo Fornaroli is “definitely worthy of being in F1”, with the team CEO hopeful that the youngster can secure a seat on the grid.

Off the back of winning the Formula 2 championship last year, Fornaroli signed to McLaren’s Driver Development Programme in December, while it was later confirmed that he would share reserve driver duties at the squad for 2026 alongside Pato O’Ward.

The Italian has since participated in testing for the team, as well as making his FP1 debut in place of Lando Norris at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, where he recorded 22 laps and placed a respectable fifth on the timesheets.

In the days that followed, the 21-year-old also got behind the wheel of Haas’ 2025 challenger, the VF-25, during a Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) run at the Jerez Circuit in Spain alongside the American outfit’s reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa, with the team stating that they have “the capacity to test and appraise drivers” through the programme.

As such, Brown was asked during the British Grand Prix weekend whether there were “real possibilities” for Fornaroli to join Kimi Antonelli as the second Italian racer on the grid.

“Yeah, I think there are,” Brown responded. “He's a great talent. He’s been doing some testing with us, and so hopefully he’ll secure an F1 seat.

“I think he’s definitely worthy of being in F1.”

In terms of McLaren’s driver line-up going forward, much recent speculation has centred around reports that Max Verstappen’s management have held informal discussions to explore opportunities at the Woking-based outfit.

However, with Norris and Oscar Piastri both holding ‘multi-year’ deals at the team, Brown reiterated that the squad are content with their current pairing.

“They're rumours,” he joked of recent Verstappen speculation. “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. I think anytime a name like Max is thrown around, people get pretty excited – a four-time World Champion – but [I'm] very happy with our driver line-up.”