Zak Brown renews calls for ‘sporting fairness’ amid A/B team conversations

Zak Brown and Christian Horner.

Zak Brown has reiterated his desire for F1 to take a closer look at the relationships between teams with the 2024 campaign approaching.

The McLaren CEO’s complaint regarding A and B teams, pointed at Red Bull, is nothing new with the American arguing that teams should not be allowed to own more than one entry.

But with both Red Bull and Visa Cash App RB ultimately owned by the same company, Brown has argued it can take away from the “sporting fairness” of F1.

Zak Brown reignites co-ownership debate

Brown’s McLaren team competes in a number of series from F1 to IndyCar but crucially, they are not competing against each other. That is not the case with Red Bull as since 2005, Austrian company Red Bull GmbH has owned both Red Bull Racing and the Faenza-based team.

That team will go by the name of Visa Cash App RB for 2024 and Red Bull chiefs such as Helmut Marko have suggested they will have a closer relationship to the Milton Keynes squad than in years previous.

For Brown, he wants that particular rule to be looked at.

“I think it’s kind of hard to say definitively who’s going to be at the front because the grid is so unbelievably close now,” Brown told Sky Sports during McLaren’s livery unveiling. “Thanks to really the cost cap that’s brought parity.

“We still have some work to do around regulations for the future. To kind of make sure this A/B team and co-ownerships doesn’t kind of take away from the sporting fairness now that we have this cost cap in and so, on that basis, I think you’re going to have 10 very competitive teams next year.”

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As for who he thinks will be the front runner in 2024, he suggested that “the industry are all pointed towards Red Bull.”

“It’s hard to [predict],” he said. “Mercedes, Ferrari, these are unbelievable racing teams.

“I would think the industry are all pointed towards Red Bull thinking that they’ll be the favourites. I think based on what they did last year, they have to be but I think the pace of development as you saw with our race car last year, I think it’s kind of hard to say definitively who’s going to be at the front.”