“Our own worst problem” - Zak Brown blasts ‘embarrassing’ team principal meetings

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has hit out at “embarrassing” approaches to team principal meetings, admitting F1 teams can be “our own worst problem at times”.

Brown believes F1 teams have too much power in the current structure and has accused some rivals of pushing for rule changes for selfish reasons which don’t benefit the sport as a whole.

He singled out former Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer for apparently changing his stance over the penalty points system when it impacted his driver at the time, Pierre Gasly.

According to Brown, Szafnauer was against the idea of softening the rules when McLaren’s Lando Norris was on the verge of a one-race ban in 2021, but lobbied for similar changes when Gasly had the threat of a suspension hanging over him.

“It can be pretty embarrassing in times in the team principal meetings,” Brown told media including Crash.net at Silverstone.

“An example being when Lando was up on penalty points two years ago, and we made our case that, actually, the majority of those penalty points weren’t ‘dangerous’ and Otmar was totally against it, because obviously everyone wanted to give Lando a ban.

“Fast-forward 12 months, Gasly’s up against it, Otmar brings forward the same exact case that we brought forward and we were like ‘dude, you voted against that?’ He didn’t even know where he voted. And that’s not healthy, because it shows that one year it might work for you, the following year it might not work for you.”

Brown added: “To take this kind of ‘what’s good for me today’ vote out of the system, I think you’ve just got to stand back and let the FIA and Formula 1 regulate for the fairness of the sport. Which means you’re going to win some, lose some. There could be some times that we lose in the short-term, because we would have liked to block something.

“I believe McLaren want to race in a fair and sporting and equitable way, which means sometimes it might go for you, sometimes it might go against you. But over the long haul, if we’re all in a sport that is about total fairness, and things are equal for everyone, I think that’s just a better sport. We all win.”

Brown said he would like to see teams have “less authority” when it comes to future decisions over rules and wants to scrap the current voting process which requires a majority agreement.

“I’d like to see the teams have less authority,” he explained. “[Still] as much of a voice, through voting for all these different things that we vote on, but I’d like to see us get rid of majority votes and get to a simple ‘50%, something gets through’ because we’re all conflicted in some way at some point.

“We do need to give more of the power back to Formula 1 and the FIA to do what they think is right for the sport. I think we’re our own worst problem at times.”