Christian Horner 'crossed the line' as F1 "healthier" with Laurent Mekies

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has shared his views on the recent management changes at Red Bull, claiming that he is happy that Laurent Mekies has replaced Christian Horner as Red Bull Racing CEO and team principal, and that Formula 1 will be “healthier” now.

The Milton Keynes outfit announced on 9 July that Mekies had replaced Horner in the role with immediate effect, removing Horner from the helm after a 20-year stint.

Brown and Horner have often clashed as McLaren and Red Bull have battled it out on track. The McLaren CEO had already revealed that he wasn’t surprised about Horner’s exit, apart from the timing of the move, and he has now discussed it further during the Hungarian Grand Prix.

“I’m happy Laurent’s in the role he is in,” Brown said, according to The Telegraph. “I like Laurent, that’ll be healthy, and maybe we can get back to focusing on competition on the track.

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“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.”

The American also claimed that Horner crossed the line with the political side of the championship before his exit.

“It went too far,” he added. “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.

Zak Brown, McLaren CEO

Photo by: Erik Junius

“If I look up and down pitlane now, I see us fighting each other hard politically, but the line is not being crossed, and that line got crossed before.

“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.”

Photos from Hungarian GP – Race