Zak Brown snaps back at Red Bull rival in 'team principal' spat

Zak Brown has refuted Laurent Mekies' suggestion that Gianpiero Lambiase is headed to McLaren to become team principal, quipping that the Red Bull boss "knows something" he doesn't. 

The American voiced his confidence in Andrea Stella, who will relinquish some of his expanded responsibilities to Lambiase when he joins in 2028 at the latest, but reiterated that he "couldn't be happier with Andrea" at the helm.

Coming on board as McLaren's chief racing officer, his current boss sparked intrigue — and further speculation — when he erroneously claimed Max Verstappen's race engineer would have a different job title.

It plays into the existing rumour that Stella is being lined up for a return to Ferrari, where he would allegedly replace Fred Vasseur — but such reports remain unfounded.

However, Brown was quick to shut down the noise surrounding Stella anyway when speaking to Sky Sports F1 ahead of sprint qualifying at the Miami Grand Prix.

"He knows something I don't, apparently," the McLaren Racing CEO shot back when Mekies' comments were put to him. "I've got a great one; I got the best one in the pit lane, Andrea Stella. So I couldn't be happier with Andrea."

Expanding on what led the Woking-based squad to pursue Lambiase, the 54-year-old underlined the engineer's abilities.

"My job as CEO is to get the best talent, to think long term and to have the most strength on the pit wall or at the factory and the car, whatever the case may be," he added.

"Andrea has done a fantastic job, our technical team... and GP [Gianpiero Lambiase] is a huge, huge talent.

"So when the opportunity presented itself to strengthen our racing team, that's exactly what we're going to do, whether it's a racing driver or an engineer, a strategist, whatever the case may be. So very happy he's going to be joining us."