serious issue with \u201cbogus allegations\u201d<\/a> being made in the sport.<\/p>\nA sign in the change in relations between McLaren and Red Bull came on Sunday in Hungary, when Brown went for a meeting with Mekies before speaking with reporters.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2213195623-scaled-e1746285427315.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Brown spoke to reporters after meeting with Mekies (Hector Vivas\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy he\u2019s in the role he\u2019s in,\u201d Brown said of Mekies. \u201cI like Laurent, and I think that\u2019ll be healthy and maybe we can get back to focusing on competition on the track.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere there\u2019s always going to be some political aspects to the sport, I think it\u2019s going to be healthier with Laurent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a fan of Laurent, (I\u2019ve) known him for a long time, and I think it\u2019ll be good to go racing against Laurent.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaren has emerged as F1\u2019s pace-setting team in the past 18 months, dethroning Red Bull at the top of the pecking order by winning last year\u2019s constructors\u2019 title ahead of Ferrari.<\/p>\n
Although Max Verstappen was able to defend his drivers\u2019 crown last year, the Dutchman has fallen far behind the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris so far this season.<\/p>\n
Brown explained that he enjoyed the way McLaren fought against Ferrari for last year\u2019s constructors\u2019 title, which included moments where he and counterpart Fred Vasseur photo-bombed their rival\u2019s post-race team race win celebrations.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a fans point of view, the drama, the villain stuff, works. But I also think the celebratory, fight it out on-track, kind of photobomb each other \u2014 that all just happened, that wasn\u2019t pre-planned, I was waiting around for our photo \u2014 I think that\u2019s really good,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s a more fun way to go racing. It can be just as entertaining, as the good cop, bad cop thing. So I\u2019m looking forward to that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt went too far. There\u2019s always going to be politicking, like trying to shut down the flexi-wings and that kind of stuff. But once you start getting into frivolous allegations, I think that\u2019s just going too far.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think, if I look up and down pit lane now, I see us fighting each other hard, politically, but there being a line that\u2019s not crossed. And I think that line got crossed before, and I think it was unhealthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown thought there would be \u201ca little bit of a change for the better\u201d and lead to a \u201cmore collegiate\u201d way of racing, similar to how McLaren battles against Ferrari and Mercedes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also think it\u2019s important for the benefit of the sport that we can all work together, and there\u2019s a higher level of trust, that if we sit down and have a conversation on a topic, there can be some confidentiality to that,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not an automatic, \u2018I\u2019m going to use that as a political weapon.\u2019 I think we\u2019re going to be in a better place to be a bit more unified, and a bit more trusting that while we\u2019re fighting now on the track, we can have a conversation about what\u2019s good for the sport, and that won\u2019t get manipulated away for political reasons, and taken out of context.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown said he expected Horner to return to F1 as his credentials were \u201cawesome.\u201d But he could not recall a time when they\u2019d had a meeting like the one he had with Mekies on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201c(It must have been a) long time ago,\u201d Brown said. \u201cMaybe when we were racing each other in Formula Three?\u201d<\/p>\n
(Photo:\u00a0Erwin Scheriau\/APA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUDAPEST, Hungary \u2014 McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown believes the political battles in Formula One will be \u201chealthier\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-44110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}