Zak Brown is looking forward to an era of what he hopes will be healthier relations between McLaren and Red Bull. This is after the Austrian company sacked long-serving team boss Christian Horner.
Brown has already met with Laurent Mekies, Horner’s replacement, in the hope of a fresh start. The two teams will always be competitors on track, but the McLaren CEO wants to end a pattern of off-track barbs.
The American says it’s a ‘shame’ that Horner was sacked given what he’d achieved, even though it was clear the two didn’t get on. Lando Norris and Max Verstappen became direct rivals last year, but the bigger bone of contention was the legality of the McLaren car.
CATEGORYMCLARENRED BULLWins1711Poles1612Podiums4523Points1,225783How McLaren compare to Red Bull since the start of last season
Aside from a rear-wing modification after a dialogue with the FIA, the Woking outfit have consistently been ruled in full compliance with the regulations. But that hasn’t stopped Red Bull from formulating theories about rule-bending or even rule-breaking, having been supplanted as F1’s dominant team.
Red Bull suggested McLaren were cooling garages and changing constructions
Horner went to remarkable lengths as he scrutinised the papaya car. Red Bull even pointed thermal imaging cameras at the McLaren during a pit stop to assess their tyre temperatures.
The FIA then received a ‘wild’ letter with a list of hypotheses about their cooling techniques. Red Bull were trying to establish whether the concepts in question were legal.
A video from The Race has now revealed some of the ideas that hadn’t previously come to light. There was even talk that McLaren had made a ‘sneaky’ change to their tyre construction.
Red Bull retracted that suggestion at the end of last season, but Brown felt aggrieved. In his eyes, it went beyond the realms of fair competition.
“McLaren began exposing Red Bull’s struggle to improve their car’s inherent balance issues,” Scott Mitchell-Malm recounted. “Horner’s team started to point fingers at what other factors could be behind that.
“It started putting pressure on the FIA to intervene over excessive front and rear-wing flexing, then it moved on to theories about McLaren finding ways to cool its tyres by adding water inside the wheel, or even benefiting from a sneaky tyre construction change.
“There was no evidence of this being true, and this was quietly recanted by Red Bull after the season ended.
Mitchell-Malm added: “Zak Brown thinks Red Bull crossed a line here, with a host of questions about design ideas and procedures related to tyre cooling that pertained to the use of gases within the tyre, the heating or cooling of a garage to potentially influence the temperatures of the car, and multiple ideas for very specific, almost entirely illegal, tyre cooling trickery.”
Red Bull bosses didn’t like Christian Horner’s relationship with Zak Brown
Horner lent into his image as the ‘pantomime villain’ by launching public jibes at Brown. It wasn’t one-sided, with the 53-year-old responding in kind.
However, Red Bull didn’t like Horner’s public clashes with Brown, which they felt tarnished their image. They may encourage Mekies to build more amicable relationships.
Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren outwardly appear to be on good terms – Red Bull have rather been the odd one out in recent times. Mekies, who comes from an engineering background, appears to be a less confrontational character, but his personality may develop over time as he takes on his biggest role yet.
Rather than any controversial tricks, McLaren’s advantage may be down to their facilities. They have recently updated their wind tunnel and simulator, which has helped consistently improve the car through upgrades – something rivals have struggled to do.