McLaren F1 boss takes dig at Red Bull and AlphaTauri relationship

McLaren F1 team CEO Zak Brown took a jibe at the model of sister teams like Red Bull and Alpha Tauri that share the same ownership in the sport. Brown was writing in an opening message for the 2022 season on the team's website. The American team boss gave a detailed explanation about the parity of competition in the sport with the concept of sister teams.

Highlighting the disparities in the competition in F1, Brown said:

“The threat of A and B teams has not gone away, and it is vital that the governance of the sport is strengthened to prevent this… It is diminishing what being an F1 ‘team’ means and the fabric of the sport.”

As of now, apart from the Red Bull F1 team, none of the other teams have a satellite team or sister squad at their bidding. Brown’s reference to the A and B team concept also referred to customer teams, which McLaren themselves are to Mercedes. He, however, abstained from specifying categorically which model had the unfair advantage in his unusually long rant.

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McLaren boss Zak Brown believes satellite team concept changes F1's definition

Similar to how Mercedes is for McLaren, Ferrari is an engine supplier to Alfa Romeo and Haas, with the latter being more of a customer team. Neither Ferrari nor Mercedes, however, have rallied their customer teams to aid them in fighting for a championship yet. In view of this, Brown’s rant comes as an unusual surprise.

Delving further into the twin team scenarios, Brown said:

“The regulations, as they stand today, are heavily biased towards B teams/customer teams which is not in line with F1’s principle of a group of genuine constructors competing with one another on even terms… Without a correction, the way things stand mean that any team with championship aspirations needs to have a B team in place and that simply is not Formula 1.”

Brown’s latest message urges the sport and its regulatory body to structure a framework to avoid twin team scenarios that diminishes the chances of a single independently owned team succeeding in the sport. According to the Woking-based team's boss, the sister team, or B team, gives an unfair advantage to its A team to dominate, especially in F1's hybrid era.