Why McLaren still wants F1 'A-B team' clarity despite end of Alpine-Mercedes deal

McLaren CEO Zak Brown will continue to push for clarity on co-operation between Formula 1 teams despite Mercedes pulling out of talks to buy a shareholding in Alpine.

Toto Wolff had been exploring the possibility of his team acquiring the 24% of the Enstone outfit currently held by US investors. While discussions were ongoing Brown repeated his long-held opinion that such relationships between teams are not healthy for the sport.

Mercedes recently confirmed that it was no longer pursuing the Alpine deal, but Brown made it clear on Friday that the issue still needs to be addressed, with sister teams Red Bull and Racing Bulls his obvious target.

“It was never about that particular situation,” he said when asked by Crash.net about the end of the Alpine-Mercedes talks. “I've been going on about this for 10 years. A/B teams, and whether it's co-ownership or A/B teams, you get kind of the same impact. I think it's something I don't think is healthy for the sport.

“I've also spoken with Toto, but I've also spoken with the majority of the teams, and I would say philosophically they all agree.

“Any sport that you're in, you want to have 11 independent teams that you know are racing in their best interests, and are playing by all the same financial rules, that are voting in their best interest, and I think we've seen over the years a lot of incidents where that's not been the case.

“And I think the sport today has never been healthier, so we're in a situation where we need 11 truly independent teams, not just co-ownership, but the A/B team, and I think everybody agrees with that.

“So I think the FIA agrees with that. I think F1 agrees with that, and I think all the teams agree with that. So, now it's about getting regulations in place that make that happen.”

Meanwhile when asked if McLaren would consider making its own power unit when the next generations regulations come into effect in 2030 or 2031 conceded that the company would review the possibility.

However he stressed that he expects to continue the relationship with Mercedes.

"First of all, very happy with HPP, they've been a great partner,” he said. “We've won a couple of championships with them, even though everyone said you couldn't win a championship with customer engine, so I think we've proven that you can. I think priority one is to stay with Mercedes. I think they've been great partner.

“Anytime a new regulation comes out, we'll take a look and see, is it something technically that's interesting? Is it something fiscally that makes sense? I think we'll go through that process when that happens, but I think sitting here right now we're extremely happy with Mercedes, and would anticipate continuing with them.”