McLaren CEO Zak Brown sent a formal letter to FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem in the past fourteen days requesting immediate rule changes to close ownership loopholes that currently permit multi-team holding structures. The letter, confirmed by three paddock sources who have seen excerpts, does not name specific teams but arrives six months after Audi's €630m Sauber acquisition and three months after reports of exploratory talks between Andretti Global advisors and existing grid slots.
The timing is commercial, not coincidental. Formula 1's Concorde Agreement permits up to 10 teams on the grid, but governance language written in 2020 predates the current wave of OEM entries and private-equity interest in franchise-style ownership models. Brown's letter specifically asks the FIA to codify that no single beneficial owner may control more than one constructor entry, closing what McLaren's legal team views as ambiguity in current sporting regulations. The FIA declined to comment on private correspondence. A McLaren spokesperson confirmed Brown "regularly communicates with the FIA on governance matters."
The underlying tension is valuation. Liberty Media's January 2023 stake sale to Qatar Investment Authority valued the commercial rights entity near $17bn, implying individual team valuations between $1.2bn and $2.8bn depending on prize-money ranking and infrastructure. That spread creates arbitrage: a well-capitalized buyer could theoretically acquire two midfield teams for less than $3bn combined, consolidate operations, and extract cost-cap efficiencies while fielding four cars under separate constructor names. Brown's letter does not address this scenario explicitly, but three team principals told sponsors in private Q1 meetings that consolidation scenarios are "no longer theoretical."
The Audi-Sauber structure is compliant under current rules because Audi operates as manufacturer and constructor simultaneously, a setup explicitly permitted since Ferrari's 1950 entry. What worries McLaren and two other independent teams is the next iteration: a holding company with no manufacturer obligations acquiring multiple entries purely as financial assets. One family office with $18bn in AUM confirmed to a potential sponsor in April that it had modeled a two-team acquisition, though no formal offer materialized. The economics improve if you can share wind-tunnel time, consolidate logistics, and deploy four cars' worth of sponsor inventory while staying under the $135m cost cap per team.
Brown's letter arrives as the FIA prepares its June World Motor Sport Council meeting in Geneva, where sporting regulations for 2026 will be finalized. The meeting agenda, circulated to stakeholders in early May, includes fifteen items; ownership structures were not listed as of May 10. If Brown's letter succeeds in adding the topic, any rule change would require approval from seven of ten team principals plus the FIA and Formula 1 Management. That vote splits predictably: McLaren, Williams, and Alpine favor restrictions; Haas and Sauber prefer flexibility; Red Bull's position depends on whether Oracle's new $500m title deal includes equity upside language.
The private-equity angle adds pressure. Three U.S.-based funds have hired motorsport advisors since February, and one former team CFO now consulting for a New York-based firm said his client "wants to own the asset, not just sponsor it." That language mirrors NBA and NFL franchise consolidation patterns from 2015-2020, when holding companies like Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment assembled multi-team portfolios. Formula 1's global sponsor base—$1.2bn in paddock-wide deals for 2024—makes the model particularly attractive if you can cross-sell activation across two teams' hospitality and two sets of four-day race weekends.
Brown's letter does not propose specific regulatory text, but McLaren's legal team has circulated draft language to two other teams suggesting that "beneficial ownership" be defined as any entity controlling more than 15% of voting rights or board seats. That threshold would permit current private-equity minority stakes—MSP Sports Capital owns 33% of McLaren Racing, RedBird Capital owns 10% of Alpine's parent—while blocking future majority cross-ownership. The FIA has not indicated whether it will adopt McLaren's framework or propose its own.
What happens next depends on whether the FIA views this as urgent or theoretical. If the topic reaches the June WMSC agenda, expect proposed rule text by mid-July and a vote in September, effective for any ownership changes after January 2025. If it does not, the window stays open through at least the next Concorde cycle starting in 2026. Three team sponsors will attend the Monaco Grand Prix with term sheets in their bags; two include acquisition clauses. One family office principal plans to sit in the Red Bull hospitality suite on Sunday and will not be watching the race.
The takeaway
McLaren formalized the multi-team ownership fight six months before the FIA's June governance meeting and three months after family offices started modeling consolidation plays.
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