McLaren boss calls Red Bull's penalty for breaching the cost cap a win for F1 and the FIA

McLaren team boss Zak Brown recently spoke about Red Bull's cost cap breach and how it was dealt with by the FIA. In 2021, F1's governing body introduced a new budget cap that no team can cross. Red Bull, however, overspent during that season and were heavily penalized for it.

Speaking on the Marshall Pruett podcast, the McLaren CEO spoke about how teams like Red Bull and Aston Martin breached the cost cap. Furthermore, he appreciated the way the FIA dealt with the breach and levied harsh penalties on these teams. Brown believes that the teams will gradually start to take the cost cap seriously after seeing such heavy punishments. He said:

“I think when we had those couple of infringements, I think it was important that it was dealt with in an appropriate and a big way to make sure that no one exceeds the cap or doesn’t take it seriously. I think everybody, including those that had their issues, definitely take it seriously. I think that was also a win.”

Zak Brown further explained how difficult it is to avoid overspending and breaching the cost cap. He explained how tight it can be during the season since crashes and reliability issues can cause a team's budget to fluctuate quite a lot. The McLaren CEO, however, is positive that every team will gradually get comfortable with the cost cap. Brown said:

“My own opinion is no one would want to break the cap. You want to get as close to it as possible and that’s a difficult and scary proposition because if you’ve looked at what you want to spend, you want to leave $1 on the table, but it’s so tight. You can have an accident with two races to go or rip off the front wing, you don’t know. So that’s a bit of an art and science. Everyone just needs to get comfortable with how much space they give themselves and over time, I think it’ll become less foreign to us.”

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McLaren CEO believes the FIA's amendment to curb political statements will improve F1

After the FIA passed a new amendment to disallow any political statements from teams and drivers, the entire F1 fanbase and paddock were split in opinion. McLaren boss Zak Brown, however, backed the FIA and spoke about how it will improve F1 as people will only focus on racing.

Speaking to ESPN, Brown stated:

"I think in general we want to be a sport that is doing good. We just need to find a balance there and not have every start of a race being a new political agenda for someone. I don't think that's healthy as it can detract from what everyone has tuned in to, which is they want to watch a grand prix."

The new amendment was passed by the FIA to align its rulebook with the International Olympic Committee. Furthermore, drivers or teams can only make a political statement if they have written permission from the FIA.