Zak Brown arrived in Formula One following the demise of McLaren’s saviour Ron Dennis who built the team following the death of its founder Bruce McLaren. Hard core McLaren fans were not immediately enamoured with the brash American who appeared to have all the answers for why their team was languishing in the bottom of the midfield despite having spent ‘5 minutes’ in the sport.

Yet Under the leadership of the former US global marketing guru, the historic British F1 marque have seen a great revival and finished the 2023 season seemingly best placed to challenge Red Bull Racing.

 

 

 

Brown a ‘leopard who can’t change his spots’

Of course Brown is a leopard that cant’ change his spots and at times shouts more loudly than his time served position really deserves.

One of those occasions was during the cost cap furore over the alleged Red Bull Racing breach. Toto Wolff had leaked during the Singapore Grand Prix that the Milton Keynes squad had spent significantly more than the new budget limit allowed which spread through the paddock like wildfire.

Of course this proved to be misinformed when the FIA finally revealed their exact findings and Red Bull’s misdemeanour was a minor overspend of less than one half of one percent.

Between Singapore and Austin Texas, a number off team principals were courted for comment. The Wiley older foxes couched their answers in a conditional and hypothetical fashion but Brown waded in with a letter to the FIA, which he or the team clearly leaked to the BBC.

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Brown demands FIA punish Red Bull

Given the rumours of financial impropriety were clearly directed singularly at Red Bull, the full frontal from Brown describing this act as “cheating” could only have been taken as an accusation at Christian Horner’s team.

Further the lack of the use of the word ‘alleged’ assumed there was in fact a de facto overspend, yet this at the time remained hearsay based on Toto Wolff’s revelations.

“The overspend breach, and possibly the procedural breaches, constitute cheating by offering a significant advantage across technical, sporting, and financial regulations,” stated Brown.

Despite there having been an agreed process for the FIA to value an potential overspend and see which category it fitted within and then apply penalties for that category all agreed by the teams – Brown set about persuading F1’s governing body of the penalty they should apply to Red Bull Racing.

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Leaked letter causes Horner fury

“We don’t feel a financial penalty alone would be a suitable penalty for [an] overspend breach or a serious procedural breach, there clearly needs to be a sporting penalty in these instances, as determined by the FIA,” he added.

Brown went on to set out in great detail the fashion in which the FIA should go about its already prescribed business in a manner which clearly infuriated Christian Horner.

“We suggest that the overspend should be penalised by way of a reduction to the team’s cost cap in the year following the ruling and the penalty should be equal to the overspend plus a further fine i.e. an overspend of $2m in 2021, which is identified in 2022, would result in a $4m deduction in 2023 ($2m to offset the overspend plus $2m fine).”

Of course none of this had been agreed as the process the FIA should follow and at the following FIA team principals press conference Zak Brown faced an incandescent Christian Horner and was forced to back up from his claims.

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Brown calls FIA to act over A-B team ownership

Now the McLaren CEO is on the Red Bull hunt again, though with a little more diplomacy and caution being deployed. He has repeatedly questioned at almost each media opportunity over the winter whether the new relationship Red Bull propose with their junior team – soon to be renamed – needs scrutiny.

Brown has also questioned whether it is time to legislate in the next Concorde agreement that no competitor in Formula One should be allowed to own two teams.

The running critique from Brown created a response from the FIA and the head of F1’s day to day affairs, Nicolas Tombazis, was forced to comment as per Autosport. He stated he was aware of the concerns but had no evidence to suggests there was any impropriety but further guidelines on how teams interact with each other in the design and build phase of their F1 cars will be forthcoming.

As Christian Horner states, the revised relationship between Red Bull Racing and whatever AT is called is nothing revolutionary.

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Red Bull doing a Ferrari – Haas

“They take benefit of the parts that are allowed to be transferred, like the gearbox and the suspension and so on, in the same way that Williams and Aston Martin have done so with Mercedes or Haas with Ferrari,” he said.

“They’re designing their own car, they’ve got their own ideas.” At least Alpha Tauri don’t outsource chassis work to Red Bull as Haas do with Dellara.

And herein lies the key. Customer cars were fairly standard in Formula One and in the early years there would be a number of teams buying from Alfa, Ferrari and others and competing the cars as independent entries.

Yet these arrangements were officially made illegal through the Concorde Agreement made in 1981. There were examples of technology exchange since then which included Simteck tuning a 1994 Benetton breadbox together with a few other rare examples but until 2009 the teams pretty much were forced to design and build their own F1 entries.

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History of teams buying from others

Following the 2008 banking crisis and the withdrawal of Honda and Toyota, it was decided to make F1 less expensive, teams could buy parts from each other which for the smaller outfits would save money.

Included in the Concorde 2009 agreement was what each team must do by itself to be considered a manufacturer. And so was born the ‘listed parts’ checklist.

The under funded Vijay Mallya owned Force India immediately took advantage this signing a deal with McLaren-Mercedes to buy engines, gearboxes, and hydraulics from the then-works Mercedes team. In 2014 the team contracted with the now independent Mercedes team to continue this technical collaboration which will run until 2026 when the now Aston Martin team will become a works team powered by Honda.

Since then a flurry of teams sought to create technical partnerships including Caterham, Virgin, and HRT – all of whom have fallen by the wayside. 

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Williams fiercely independent

Williams through it all have fought to retain their independence despite their relationship with Mercedes in recent years.

Haas F1 took the ‘listed parts’ schedule and decided it would take things to a new level. Their aero intellectual property must be unique, but their chassis design is outsourced to Dellara. Then Haas buy as many parts from Ferrari as possible creating probably F1’s first ‘buy and build’ team.

Haas F1 joined F1 in 2016 but the sport has moved on since then and many question owner Gene Haas approach which sees a lack of investment in infrastructure and a pursuit of his original model.

Yet for now the rules allow this approach to building an F1 car and Red bull are entitled to operate under them too.

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Shared facilities lead to shared IP?

Indeed, McLaren currently has no such technical arrangements and then team boss Andreas Seidl has admitted that such agreements between teams are difficult to police.

Yet MclAren team principal Andrea Seidl is on board with his CEO. When questioned on the matter he was adamant that policing intellectual property transfer was extremely difficult.

“It’s clear that, in Formula 1, the maximum that you should be allowed to share is the power unit and the gearbox internals,” he said.

“That’s it, there should be no sharing of any infrastructure and so on because, as soon as you allow that, IP transfer is happening on the car side.

“We know from the FIA that it’s difficult to police, and if something is not possible to police then you need to ban it. For two reasons: because it makes B teams overly competitive compared to teams like us; and at the same time the A teams are also benefitting from this, which is even more worrying for us.”

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Haas F1 have no infrastructure

McLaren are set to use their new wind tunnel facilities this year and their much improved car may then be even quicker. Aston Marton who have hired Mercedes in previous years will see their wind tunnel come on stream too in 2024.

But where does this leave Haas? They use Ferrari’s wind tunnel and as their biggest customer who knows which simulation run plans could be left on the control desk?

Of course the new AT will improve this season, but that won’t be due to cheating. They must design their own car and Tombazis explains how rigorous their audit ofd this process is.

The ‘who ha’ erupting over this topic began following the fitting of the RB19 rear suspension to AlphaTauri’s AT04 in Singapore last season. From then the team quickly improved and challenged Williams at the last event for the title of best of the back markers missing out by just one point.

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AlphaTauri set to challenge Alpine

Brown and McLaren have nothing to fear this season from the relocated AlphaTauri into the bosom of its mother ship. Yet the team’s new CEO has warned Alpine they are setting their sights on a P5 finish at the end of the year.

It may be time to consider returning to the days pre-2009 when teams pretty much have to build their own F1 cars. Yet if this happens it will by Haas F1 who are in deep trouble not AlphaTauri who have operated more than semi-autonomous from Red Bull for years.

Of course Haas F1 wold need time to invest around $200m in facilities and infrastructure to design and build their own F1 team and time would be demanded to allow this to happen.

So for the foreseeable future ‘listed parts’ will remain and as lower ranked teams fear, AlphaTauri will rise through the ranks in 2024 which no doubt will please ex-Red Bull top driver Daniel Ricciardo.

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