Zak Brown: F1 is a better place without Christian Horner

Telegraph

5 days ago

Zak Brown has said that Formula One is 'healthier' without Christian Horner and that the sport will be 'in a better place' without the former Red Bull team principal
Horner was axed from his role with the F1 team in July after a turbulent final 18 months with the outfit. He was investigated for inappropriate behaviour last year, though was later cleared after two separate investigations.
On the track, Red Bull's results have declined dramatically since mid-2024 and numerous high-profile figures in the team have left during that time.
Horner has been replaced by Laurent Mekies, and Brown, the McLaren chief executive and long-time rival of Horner's, said that he felt more comfortable with the Frenchman in charge at the Milton Keynes-based team.
McLaren and Red Bull – and Horner and Brown – have had numerous spats over recent years as the two teams battled each other for honours on the track.
'I'm happy Laurent's in the role he is in,' Brown said. '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.'
One of the main areas of dispute between the pair was over Red Bull's breach of the cost cap for the 2021 season, when they won the drivers' championship with Max Verstappen. The team were found guilty in 2022 of a 'minor overspend' of the FIA's $145m budget constraint the previous year. They avoided any sporting penalty but were deducted development time from their allocation.
There was also a war of words between the pair about alleged breaches of the technical regulations over the last year. One related to McLaren's 'flexi rear wing' that appeared to give them an advantage on the straights and another was about the team allegedly putting water in their tyres to help with cooling.
Brown said Red Bull's actions occasionally crossed the 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.
'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 added.
'I think that we'll see a little bit of a change for the better. 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.'
In an interview with Telegraph Sport earlier this year, Brown – whose rivalry with Horner was captured in the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive – said the on-screen animosity was not manufactured for the benefit of viewers.
'There's no love lost there. I don't like how he rolls and no doubt he feels the same about me. But I think it's good for the sport. You need different characters. You need these rivalries. Some are friendly, sporting rivalries. Some are a bit more vicious. It's always been like that.'