Zak Brown claims F1 “in a better place” without Christian Horner

McLaren boss Zak Brown has claimed that F1 is “in a better place” without former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.

Brown, who never saw eye to eye with Horner and regularly engaged in public spats with the Briton, believes F1 is in a healthier spot following his shock dismissal from Red Bull.

The American has welcomed Red Bull’s appointment of Laurent Mekies and revealed he met privately with Mekies following his recent promotion to become Horner’s successor.

“I’m happy Laurent’s in the role he is in,” Brown said, as per The Telegraph. “I like Laurent, that’ll be healthy, and maybe we can get back to focusing on competition on the track.

“There’s always going to be some political aspects to the sport, but I think it is going to be healthier with Laurent. I’m a fan of Laurent, I have known him for a long time, and it’ll be good to go racing against him.”

Christian Horner rivalry ‘went too far’

Brown believes his rivalry with Horner “went too far” and accused his former Red Bull counterpart of crossing a line.

"It went too far. There’s always going to be politicking in F1 – let’s try and shut down their flexi-wings and that stuff, but when you start getting into frivolous allegations, that’s just going too far,” the McLaren chief explained

“If I look up and down pit lane now, I see us fighting each other hard politically, but the line is not being crossed, and that line got crossed before.”

Brown expects a more harmonious and respectful relationship with Red Bull going forward.

“I think that we’ll see a little bit of a change for the better,” he continued. “There’s a higher level of trust that now if we sit down and have a conversation on a topic where we think there could be some confidentiality, and it’s just not an automatic ‘I’m going to use that as a political weapon’.

“We’re going to be in a better place, a little bit more unified, and a little bit more trusting that while we’re fighting on track, we can have a conversation about what’s good for the sport off it.

“And that won’t get manipulated for political reasons and taken out of context.”

Brown added: "I love the way we raced Ferrari. Fred [Vasseur] kind of started it by celebrating our Miami win.

"I've known Fred a long time. He's a proper racer, and the way we went racing - make no mistake about it, we want to beat each other - but I enjoyed that. I thought that was really good for the sport.

"From a fan's point of view, the drama of the villain stuff, I think works. But I also think the celebratory 'fight it out on track, but then kind of photobomb each other', which that all kind of just happened, that's really good.

"That's a more fun way to go racing, and can be just as entertaining as the good cop, bad cop thing."