McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown sent a formal letter to FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem requesting rule changes that would explicitly prohibit common ownership structures across Formula 1 teams. The letter, confirmed by three people familiar with the correspondence, arrives four months after Audi completed its $645 million acquisition of Sauber and six weeks before the Las Vegas paddock opens for pre-season testing.

Brown's letter does not name specific transactions. It argues that existing F1 governance allows scenarios where a private equity fund, sovereign wealth vehicle, or family office could accumulate non-controlling stakes in multiple teams without triggering current ownership disclosure thresholds. The FIA's commercial regulations require disclosure of stakes above 25 percent in a single team but contain no cross-team aggregation language. Brown's proposal would cap combined economic interest across all ten teams at 10 percent per investor and require quarterly beneficial ownership filings with the FIA's compliance office in Geneva.

The timing matters because three teams are in active sale processes. Williams Racing, valued near $800 million by Jefferies in December, is running a dual-track process with both strategic buyers and a consortium that includes Arctos Partners. Haas F1, privately held by Gene Haas, has entertained overtures from two U.S.-based family offices since August. Sauber's Audi deal created a template: Audi took 100 percent of the team but structured the purchase through Volkswagen Group's motorsport subsidiary, leaving the door open for future co-investment at the holding company level. One person close to the Williams process said two bidders have proposed structures where the operating team would sit inside a wider motorsport investment vehicle that could later add a second F1 asset.

Brown's concern is not theoretical. Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri (formerly Toro Rosso) share a common parent in Red Bull GmbH, a structure grandfathered under rules written in 2010. Toro Rosso entered F1 in 2006 when Red Bull bought the Minardi team outright. No other ownership group has attempted a similar arrangement since, but the rulebook does not forbid it. The FIA's governance framework, rewritten during the budget cap negotiations in 2020-2021, focused on spending limits and technical parity, not ownership concentration. Brown's letter argues that framework is now obsolete because team valuations have tripled since the Netflix-era audience surge began in 2019. A 10 percent stake in a mid-grid team now costs more than full ownership did a decade ago, and the investor class has shifted from racing families to diversified allocators hunting uncorrelated returns.

McLaren itself is backed by Ares Management and MSP Sports Capital, which together own 85 percent of McLaren Racing. MSP, a New York-based firm, also holds stakes in esports organizations and considered a bid for an NBA expansion team in 2022. Brown has no ownership in McLaren Racing but holds equity in a separate entity that licenses McLaren's commercial partnerships in North America. His letter sidesteps McLaren's own structure and focuses on hypothetical scenarios where a sovereign fund could build a portfolio of F1 teams the way Arctos has accumulated sports franchises across leagues. One FIA official, speaking off the record, said Brown's proposal would require unanimous team approval under the Concorde Agreement's governance annex, a threshold that has not been met on any substantive rule change since the cost cap itself.

The FIA's response will likely arrive before the Bahrain season opener in March. Ben Sulayem's office has prioritized governance reforms since he took the presidency in December 2021, but team ownership sits in a gray zone between the FIA's sporting authority and Formula 1 Management's commercial jurisdiction. Liberty Media, which owns F1's commercial rights, has not commented. Brown's letter also requests that any new ownership rule include a clawback provision allowing the FIA to unwind transactions completed within 18 months of the rule's adoption if they violate the new threshold, a clause that would directly affect any Williams or Haas deal signed in early 2025.

Watch for FIA's formal reply by mid-February, which will indicate whether this gets added to the March World Motor Sport Council agenda. If it does, expect at least three teams to oppose any retroactive elements, and watch whether Andretti Global, still lobbying for an 11th grid slot, weighs in with language about investor concentration as a barrier to new entries.