Brown in fresh plea over F1 issue - 'The FIA really need to do something'

McLaren Team Principal Zak Brown has reiterated his dissatisfaction with Red Bull's collaboration with its sister RB squad in Formula 1.

Red Bull has owned two teams since the 2006 campaign and has mostly used its second squad (which has run under the Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri names) to field junior drivers.

However, the team is changing its philosophy going forward by fielding at least one experienced driver alongside a younger Red Bull junior.

Additionally, its technical alliance with Red Bull has expanded this year and it is now using as many parts from the reigning World Champions as permitted by the regulations.

Brown has been outspoken about his concerns regarding the partnership for the last several months and took aim once again following the launch of McLaren's MCL38 car on Wednesday.

“I’m speaking in the wider interest of the sport,” Brown told Sky F1. “If you look at every other major sport. I’d even go further, there’s A-B team relationships.

“When they started 15 years ago it was because there were big gaps between the top teams and the bottom teams.

“Now that there’s this great budget cap in place, all teams are pretty much running at the cap.

“It’s an equal playing field. I can tell you from sitting in the FIA-F1 Commission meetings, the voting is always the same when in theory it shouldn’t be in one of the team’s best interests.”

Brown calls for FIA intervention

RB CEO Peter Bayer recently told RacingNews365 that a closer collaboration with Red Bull is required if it wishes to be successful.

However Brown has called on the FIA to intervene and put a stop to allowing an organisation to own more than one team on the grid.

“We’ve seen it on track, some collaborations going on. Technically, they’ve been very forthright in ‘we’re going to take the suspension, etc.’,” Brown said.

“The definition of a Constructor is someone who develops their own Intellectual Property. I think the sport has moved onto an equal playing field.

“To have A-B relationships and co-ownerships of two teams on a level playing field, it's not what the fans expect. The FIA really need to do something about it.”