McLaren CEO Zak Brown sent a letter to FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem requesting rule changes that would prohibit common ownership structures across multiple Formula 1 teams. The move follows years of tension over Red Bull's operation of both its flagship team and VCARB, the Faenza-based outfit formerly known as AlphaTauri and Toro Rosso before that.
Brown's letter does not call for retroactive dissolution of existing arrangements. Red Bull Racing and VCARB share ownership under Red Bull GmbH, a structure grandfathered when the energy-drink company acquired the second team in 2005. Brown is asking the FIA to close the door on future scenarios where a single parent entity controls more than one grid slot. The timing is specific: three would-be entrants—Andretti Global, Hitech GP's partnership talks, and a Panthera Asia consortium—have floated ownership models in recent months that could involve shared capital structures with existing teams or sister operations in junior categories.
The commercial math explains the urgency. Formula 1 franchise values have climbed roughly 40 percent since Liberty Media's cost cap took effect in 2021, with mid-grid teams now carrying enterprise values near $1.5 billion in private secondaries. A $200 million anti-dilution entry fee does not compensate ten existing teams for splitting the constructor prize pool eleven or twelve ways. If a new entrant shares ownership ties with an existing team, incumbents see dilution without competitive addition. Brown's letter also references technical resource sharing: VCARB uses Red Bull Technologies for certain aerodynamic and simulation work under commercial contracts that sit outside the cost cap's scope. McLaren argues this creates asymmetric advantages when a parent company can allocate uncapped engineering hours across two teams developing under the same regulations.
The FIA's Sporting Code already limits team principals and senior engineers from holding roles at multiple entries. Brown is pushing for ownership provisions that mirror those governance rules. The precedent is not hypothetical. VCARB's presence gives Red Bull Racing 22 race weekends of tire data, double the sensor hours in FP1, and a second pit wall to prototype strategy calls. When Sergio Perez struggled through 2024's second half, Red Bull evaluated a mid-season swap with VCARB's Liam Lawson, a lever unavailable to single-team operators. Mercedes and McLaren lobbied the FIA on tire testing protocols in September after Red Bull appeared to correlate VCARB's high-rake data into its RB20 update package at Monza.
Brown's letter circulated to all ten team principals before reaching Ben Sulayem. Toto Wolff and Alpine's interim leadership are expected to countersign a formal proposal when the FIA's World Motor Sport Council meets in late February 2025. Ferrari has not taken a public position but its legal team reviewed anti-competition language with the FIA in December, according to two people familiar. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner called the letter "a solution in search of a problem" during post-season testing in Abu Dhabi, noting that VCARB finishes outside the constructor prize money more often than inside it.
The rule change would not affect Haas, which purchases Ferrari powertrains and suspension components under supplier agreements that do not involve equity stakes. Brown's language distinguishes between commercial vendor relationships and ownership structures where a parent can direct team operations or share technical personnel. If the FIA adopts his framework, any new entrant would need discrete ownership from all existing teams, and no current participant could acquire a second entry without divesting the first.
The World Motor Sport Council's February docket also includes sprint-race weekend format revisions and a working-group report on sustainable fuel mandates for 2026. Brown's letter will appear under governance, where it competes for attention with the FIA's ongoing audit of its own financial controls. Ben Sulayem announced a third-party review of the governing body's $300 million annual budget in December after Senate inquiries in the U.S. about the FIA's anti-money-laundering procedures ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix's $600 million paddock infrastructure spend.
McLaren has not proposed language for enforcement or grandfather provisions. The letter requests the FIA draft rules by the end of Q1 2025 and bring them to a vote before the Belgian Grand Prix in July. That timeline ensures any approved changes take effect before General Motors' Cadillac-branded 2026 entry finalizes its governance structure with Andretti Global and TWG Global, the entity Michael Andretti is negotiating with after Formula 1 initially rejected his bid.
Three team sponsors—a Gulf State sovereign fund, a European luxury conglomerate, and a Nasdaq-listed payments platform—are reportedly pausing 2026 commitment decisions until the ownership question resolves. Sponsors pay mid-eight-figure annual fees to associate with constructor brands. If one parent company can field two teams, the activation value splits across both, reducing per-team media exposure while the sponsor's cost remains fixed to a single contract.
The takeaway
Brown's letter forces the FIA to codify ownership exclusivity before **2026** grid expansion, directly affecting Cadillac's structure and VCARB's future.
formula1ownershipgovernancemclarenred bullfia
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