Last Updated on August 4 2025, 5:24 pm

The CEO of McLaren Racing Zak Brown is not known for his tact and diplomacy. The latest heir to Bruce McLaren’s Formula One outfit has been spitting fire in the paddock for a number of seasons.

Brown nailed his stake to the mast with an open letter to the FIA in 2022, calling for strict punishments for any team in breach of the newly introduced budget cap, obliquely describing Red Bull Racing as “cheats.”

At the USGP in Austin, Horner called a press conference where he responded to Zak Brown’s claims stating: “For a fellow competitor to be accused of cheating, to accuse you of fraudulent activity is shocking. It’s absolutely shocking.” Horner went on to outline how children of his staff had been bullied at school following the McLaren boss’s accusations.

 

 

 

Brown advocates scrapping F1 2 team ownership

Brown looked uncomfortable at the team principals press conference that weekend, where he denied accusing Red Bull of inappropriate behaviour in an effort to suggest his letter was in fact written as a generalisation. Yet the battle lines were drawn, with Horner now facing two adversaries in the Mercedes boss Wolff who was now joined by Brown.

At the start of 2024 when Christian Horner faced false allegations of “inappropriate behaviour”, Brown was swift to call on the FIA to get involved to ensure F1 didn’t fall into disrepute. Yet his calls for action and “transparency” were a clear indication that Brown was again seeking to put the boot in on his rival team boss.

Brown’s most recent attacks on the Red Bull Racing establishment have come in the form of calls for the FIA to ban anyone from owning more than one F1 team.

“I think the A-B team is a real problem moving forward. I think co-ownership, you don’t really have that in any other sport, and I think that provides a lot of conflict of interest,” Brown told Sky F1. “So now that we have a budget cap we need to be really a sport of total fairness and I think any time you have an entity that owns two teams, or an A and B relationship, I think it really starts to compromise the integrity of sporting fairness,” said Brown in 2024.

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Horner defends the two Red Bull owned teams history

Horner rubbished the McLaren CEO’s remarks by noting that Red Bull in fact own two football teams who compete in the champions league, one of the world’s premier sporting competitions. He further pointed to Red Bull’s commitment to F1, when others bailed out on the sport. “Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley approached Dietrich Mateschitz back in 2005 to acquire what was then the Minardi Formula 1 team which was perennially struggling and on the brink of bankruptcy,” said Horner.

“Dietrich stepped in, he acquired the team, shored it up, and then invested significantly in their Faenza facilities in Italy. We then faced the financial crisis in 2008, as other manufacturers chose that opportunity to leave the sport. I think four of them left at that point, but Red Bull remained resolute and continued to support both teams through that difficult period.”

With Zak Brown joining F1 in 2016, when the sport was on a much firmer footing, the details of the history of the two Red Bull F1 teams may well have evaded him. Even so, the McLaren CEO is still pressing the FIA to introduce a clause in the 2030 Concorde Agreement that prohibits the ownership of more than one Formula One team.

With Horner now gone and Red Bull’s Austrian owners looking to reduce the scope of his role now occupied by Laurent Mekies, Brown will sniff an opportunity to once again press the FIA on the two team ownership matter. His dispassionate comments following Horner’s surprise dismissal have now been followed up by some apparent bridge building with Mekies.

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Brown accuses Horner of “frivolous allegations”

Having met with the new Red Bull team principal in Hungary, the McLaren CEO described his pleasure at their rapport and in a final dig at Horner he expressed his hope the pair can build a more transparent and cooperative relationship. “I’m happy he’s in the role he’s in,” said Brown of Mekies. “I like Laurent, and I think that’ll be healthy, and maybe we can get back to focusing on competition on the track.

“While there’s always going to be some political aspects to the sport, I think it’s going to be healthier with Laurent. I’m a fan of Laurent. I’ve known him for a long time, and I think it’ll be good to go racing against Laurent.”

Zak went on to outline the dysfunctional relationship which had developed between the two teams, the latest being over suspected flex-wings and accusations that McLaren had been using water to cool the tyres.

“But when you start getting into frivolous allegations, I think that’s just going too far. If I look up and down pit lane now, I see us fighting each other hard politically, but there being a line that’s not crossed. I think that line got crossed before, and I think it was unhealthy. So I think that we’ll see a little bit of a change for the better,” concluded the McLaren CEO.

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Mekies responds

Brown is relatively new to Formula One and appears not to understand that since the inception of the sport, the FIA has used teams to uncover potentially illegal actions from their competitors. Teams would protest the result of a race to engage the FIA’s technical department which is now better resourced so this process has largely fallen by the wayside.

Responding to Brown’s comments, Mekies claims Red Bull already have good relationships up and down the pit lane. “Competition on the track is one thing. Discussing together to establish a stance on the future of the sport, about major strategic decisions we as a sport should take for the future, is common amongst competitors.”

“And no matter how much we disagree here and there or just defend our short-term or medium-term interests, the truth is that we have a very good relationship with Zak, with Andrea, but also with Toto and also with Fred and Mattia and all the other guys. So it’s a very good group,” claimed the new Red Bull boss.

“We have done enough F1 committees together to be aware that we want to make a real contribution to the sport”, continued the Frenchman. “And I think the sport at the level where it stands now deserves a group where we temper the short-term and medium-term interests and discuss with the FIA and the F1 how we can move forward.

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Unforeseen consequences facing the Austrians

“That’s what we’re trying to do. We don’t hide our biases, but we try to be constructive about how we should approach this”, Mekies concluded.

Laurent is no stranger to the F1 paddock politicking having seen his life working for teams along with a stint at the FIA. Yet now being a player in the infamous ‘Piranha club’ is a whole other level skulduggery that Mekies will have to navigate. He should beware the snake eyes of Zak Brown, who will no doubt if push comes to shove, drop Red Bull Racing in it with the FIA.

The Austrian overlords may also find their removal of Horner, whose role covered more than just Red Bull Racing, may find now they have lost the fiercest defender of the two team ownership situation. Further, having not lived through the time when Ecclestone and the FIA begged the founder of the Red Bull empire to run both Toro Rosso and Red Bull Racing, Mekies level of influence in this matter is significantly diminished.

 

 

 

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Oscar Piastri had the win at the 2025 Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix in his grasp, but let it slip. Having been pipped by 0.062 seconds to pole by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, all eyes from the Aussie’s strategists were on the red car up ahead while Lando Norris’ poor start left the British driver in the rear view mirror.

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