Red Bull boss Christian Horner addresses brewing discontent over brand having two teams on F1 grid

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has addressed the concerns about the brand's dual ownership in F1 with AlphaTauri. He said that the relationship is similar to what other teams have as well.

As part of the regulations, the customer cars concept cannot be put in place, while there are a set of parts that are termed 'transferrable components'. Williams and Aston Martin have a relationship with Mercedes, and they utilise these aspects.

Haas also has a special relationship with Ferrari and utilises a lot of the parts from the Italian team. The issue gained momentum last season when AlphaTauri's status was under the scanner due to sustained underperformance.

From 2024 onwards, there would be a closer association between Red Bull and its sister team, and the arrangement would be similar to what Haas has with Ferrari. Before this, the Faenza-based squad would have its entire independent operation, which has led to McLaren calling out what it terms as a conflict of interest.

Addressing the same on Sky Sports, Horner dismissed the thing as a non-issue and said:

“AlphaTauri is owned by the same shareholders as Red Bull Racing. But of course, the way they operate is independent from Red Bull Racing.

"They take benefit of the parts that are allowed to be transferred, like the gearbox and the suspension and so on. In the same way that Williams and Aston Martin have done so with Mercedes, or Haas with Ferrari.”

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McLaren boss voices concern about Red Bull-AlphaTauri relationship

The McLaren boss voiced his concern about the Red Bull-AlphaTauri relationship recently during his team's livery launch.

It's something that seems to have become a point of contention for Zak Brown as he has mentioned it before as well. Talking to Sky Sports, he touched on it again:

"We have some work to do around the rules. I think the A-B team is a real problem moving forward. I think co-ownership, you don't really have that in any other sport, and I think that provides a lot of conflict of interest."

He added:

"So now that we have a budget cap we need to be really a sport of total fairness, and I think any time you have an entity that owns two teams, or an A and B relationship, I think it really starts to compromise the integrity of sporting fairness. That's something that really needs to be tackled."

It's surely going to be an ongoing topic of discussion for teams in the future, as a single brand having two teams is something that cannot be considered desirable for the sport.