Toto Wolff urges caution over 'full handbrake' after Zak Brown demand

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has urged against the series opting for a "full handbrake" of customer teams in response to McLaren boss Zak Brown's ongoing concerns over dual-ownership in F1.

Brown has long crusaded against dual-ownership in F1, with the so-called A/B teams - with the most striking example of this being Red Bull GmbH owning both Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls.

Such arrangements are banned in football, with UEFA banning clubs a part of the same ownership group from competing in the same competition, with Crystal Palace demoted from the 2025/26 Europa League to the Conference League. 

At the time, owner John Textor had a 43% stake in the club, along with being the majority owner of French side Lyon, with Palace demoted to the third-level competition despite Textor selling his shares.

The Red Bull-Racing Bulls arranagement has existed since Dietrich Mateschitz brought Minardi ahead of the 2006 season, and lasted thorugh the Toro Rosso, AlphaTauri, and Racing Bulls guises.

Brown has aired his concerns over the set-up in a letter to FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, including how Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies was able to move immediately across to Red Bull Racing to replace the sacked Christian Horner in July 2025.

Normally, a senior figure as the team principal would be handed a significant period of gardening leave to ensure key information could not be transferred to a rival team, but Mekies was in place immediately following Horner's sacking - and on the pit-wall for the Belgian GP. 

Reacting to Brown's demands, Mercedes chief Wolff pointed to the example of the Haas team to defend against customer teams - and called for tighter rules to allay any concerns Brown may have.

"I think every position, philosophical position concerning that question, is understandable," Wolff began when asked by media, including RacingNews365 for his take on Brown's letter.

"Gene Haas wouldn’t have been able to enter Formula 1 if they hadn’t had a deal with Ferrari, because as a smaller team you simply can’t manufacture your engine, your gearbox, your hydraulics, your cooling, etcetera. 

"So, in a day and age where it was really difficult to find teams that would compete in Formula 1 because it was so expensive pre-cost cap, that was an optimum way to do it, number one. 

"Number two, there will always be the position of Zak, I guess, is to say: 'how are these teams collaborating with each other? Is there an advantage in terms of development, using the same wind tunnel?' I think the rules are strict enough that nobody would actually breach them, but it’s a fair argument for another team to say, “Is there an advantage when you shuffle people back and forth,” which you can still do. 

"That brings [me to] the third position, and I think this is mainly where Zak is coming from. If you have dual ownership of teams and dual control ownership, there will be automatically benefits in many areas, and some, I would say most of it, within the rules.

"We had a race in Miami where there was an overtake that was facilitated. Would that have happened between teams that weren’t under the same control? Maybe yes, maybe not. So, from where I stand, I think we need to have rules where collaborations on the development side and on the sporting side need to be strictly defined. 

"If that is the case, it doesn’t matter actually what the shareholding or what the ownership structure is, whether you are a customer team and you’re buying certain parts or whether you’re a customer that’s buying just an engine. 

"Because where do you stop? If we say, “OK, full handbrake, the sport is in good shape, we want to have 11 constructors,” that means everybody brings their own engine, everybody brings their own gearboxes, rear ends, etcetera. 

"That would be obviously nirvana, but how should a relatively small team like Haas do that today? It’s not possible. 

"So, I think we need to allow space for all of the positions in that. And for me, the only right outcome and objective needs to be rules that make it even clearer what’s on and what is not on."