McLaren double down on Red Bull-RB criticism: “The FIA need to do something”

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has urged the FIA to take action on Red Bull’s close alliance with sister F1 team Visa Cash App RB.

Red Bull have had a second team on the grid since 2006, starting off as Toro Rosso.

The sister outfit has often been a way for Red Bull to try out their young drivers and see who has what it takes to drive for the main team.

The likes of Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo all started out at Toro Rosso before winning races and championships (in the case of the first two) with Red Bull.

RB (formerly AlphaTauri) are widely-regarded to be working more closely with Red Bull, taking as much as they can from the world champions - within the regulations - to gain a competitive advantage.

RB’s relationship with Red Bull has irked Brown in particular, who has been most critical on this issue.

Speaking after the launch of McLaren’s 2024 F1 calendar, Brown disagreed that he was “paranoid” about RB’s potential threat in 2024, explaining he’s “speaking in the wider interest” of F1.

“No, I’m actually speaking in the wider interest of the sport,” he said. “If you look at every other major sport, you’re not allowed to own two teams – and I’d even go further.

“There’s A-B team relationships and when these started 15 years ago it was because there was a huge gap between the top teams and the bottom teams.

“Now that there’s this great budget cap in place, all 10 teams are pretty much running to the cap so we have an equal playing field.

“So to have two ownerships, I can tell you from sitting in the FIA and F1 Commission meetings the voting is always the same even when, in theory, it shouldn’t be in one of the team’s best interests.

“We’ve seen it on track, some collaborations going on, and then technically they’ve been very forthright in where they’re going to take the suspension, etc.

“The definition of a constructor is a team who develops their own IP, so I just think the sport’s now moved on to an equal playing field.

“To have A-B relationships, to have co-ownership of two teams, I think isn’t a level playing field.

“That’s not what the fans expect and so the FIA really needs to do something about it.”