Red Bull respond to Zak Brown's letter to FIA over F1 team ownership rules

Brown pointed to several scenarios in which Red Bull's ownership of sister team Racing Bulls was of apparent benefit to the Milton Keynes team on track, most recently Liam Lawson letting Max Verstappen pass relatively during the Miami GP. The McLaren boss also highlighted the ease with which staff members could move between the two teams without gardening leave.

The 54-year-old said: "We need to eliminate any further alliances, whether through ownership, strategic participation or any other equivalent form of control or influence, and we need to work together quickly to start the process of unwinding those already established to ensure that the future integrity of the sport is not compromised."

Speaking ahead of last weekend's Canadian GP, McLaren's team principal Andrea Stella agreed that the principles laid out in Brown's letter should be "enforced totally," adding: "The reason why we want this principle and this point to be discussed is because we think, from a practical point of view, there’s more that we should do. We are happy with how this is being received."

Sat next to Stella was not only Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies, but also Racing Bulls boss Alan Permane. Responding to Brown's letter, Mekies argued Red Bull would be supportive of any changes to ensure F1's 11 teams are "racing independently."

Mekies said: "We have made many steps as a sport in recent weeks, in recent months, in recent years, to try to ensure more and more independence from every team racing on track. If any stakeholders, let it be another team or anyone else, would feel that more steps are needed to ensure 11 teams racing independently, we would support.

Meanwhile, Racing Bulls team principal Permane detailed how he thought the team's relationship with Red Bulls has been of benefit, but expressed no concern that the two squads were not respecting F1's rules.

Permane responded: "Yeah, I would say, do we feel the benefit? I certainly feel the benefit of being part of the Red Bull family and coming under Austria, Red Bull corporate projects group. Our relationship with Red Bull Racing is very much a customer-supplier relationship. We take some suspension from them, we take gearbox from them, and various other components that are allowed under the technical regulations, which we follow very rigorously."

Permane also compared his long career with Alpine with the job at Racing Bulls, adding that the latter does "a lot of work" to ensure no rules were being broken. He added: "And actually, I have to say, having worked at a team where we don’t have that relationship at all and now a team where we do have it, a lot of work goes into ensuring that we are respecting those rules.

"So, a lot of effort that could be put into other areas, a lot of effort is put into ensuring that we respect those regulations. So, I don’t see any issue with the way we operate currently," Permane concluded.