Zak Brown denies destroying evidence as driver contract case continues

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has denied destroying evidence relating to his team's case against IndyCar champion Alex Palou.

A court case began earlier this week as McLaren seeks roughly $20 million in damages from Palou, who has admitted to a breach of contract.

Palou agreed to join McLaren from 2024 before he backed out of the deal, opting to remain at Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) where he has since added to his IndyCar title tally.

Brown appeared in court earlier this week, where he clashed with Palou's barrister Nick De Marco in a testy exchange while being cross-examined.

The American returned to the witness box on Wednesday, where he was shown a number of WhatsApp messages that were submitted last minute by Palou's legal team, according to MotorSport.

The messages involve former McLaren team manager Gavin Ward, who informed a contact that McLaren uses WhatsApp's disappearing messages function. He claims it does this to “cover their ass on lawsuits”.

A screenshot from Ward's phone involves vice president of marketing and communication for McLaren's IndyCar team, Lauren Gaudion, who refers to a document with the password being “Palou”.

A message from Brown follows, in which he declares: “Keep everything [in] WhatsApp and then delete. I'll respond [to] any changes here.”

The screenshots are dated August 3, 2023, just days before Palou's intention to remain at CGR was made public. At the time, it was widely speculated that Palou could back out of his deal with McLaren.

De Marco accused Brown of being “keen to destroy evidence related to Palou”.

The barrister added: “You have destroyed evidence in this case. You’ve turned on disappearing messages when instructed not to do so, because you were worried what the consequences might be.

“After the lawyers told you not to put on delete messages, you continued to do so and told your staff to do so.”

Brown was asked, regarding the messages: “Is this related to the case?”

The 53-year-old repled: “Looks like it, I don't have it.”

“You don’t have it because you told everyone to destroy it!” responded De Marco.”

Further screenshots were shown to the court between Ward and Canadian journalist Jeff Pappone, a conversation that surrounded Ward's exit from the team.

Ward: “Chat with lawyers went well. Expect we'll send an email with list of demands to be met if we are to agree to a quote.

Ward: “Oh man, turning of McLaren's mandated 7-day disappearing messages setting feels truly liberating.”

Pappone: “Mandated disappearing messages?? Really??”

Ward: “Yep... to cover their ass on lawsuits. Talk about a red flag.”

Brown was asked by his own legal team if he had turned on disappearing messages to “cover our assess”, to which the American replied: “No.”

Four-time IndyCar champion Palou is set to be questioned on Friday.