McLaren CEO Zak Brown has raised considerations about the courtship between Red Bull and its junior team, AlphaTauri, as “something he wants to resolve in the future. “
Red Bull has owned two F1 cars since the mid-2000s: the company bought the Jaguar team for the 2005 season, before buying the Italian Minardi the following year and renaming it Toro Rosso.
Toro Rosso was renamed AlphaTauri, after the trendy Red Bull logo, in 2021, but still operates from the same headquarters in Faenza, Italy.
The world champions recorded the most dominant F1 season in history this year and by early July had stopped working on the dominant RB19 and started on its successor.
AlphaTauri, by comparison, took a step forward until the last race of the year.
Brown, who’s McLaren team emerged as Red Bull’s closest competitor in the second half of the season, wants the partnership between the two teams to be looked at.
In an interview with Autosport, Brown said: “The million-dollar question that none of us know is how early did they [Red Bull] turn off this year’s car?
“We know we outperformed the others in the progression race, and we know we closed the gap to Red Bull, but what none of us know is: Did Red Bull stop it and we just got stuck, or were they still in progression?
“Also, we have some big concerns over the alliance between AlphaTauri and Red Bull. I think that is something that needs to be addressed in the future.
“So, I still think the sport has a way to go to make sure that everyone is truly independent.”
What the Red Bull-AlphaTauri partnership will look like long-term has been a major topic of discussion since the death of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz in October 2022.
Mateschitz’s son Mark, who owns 49% of the company, has resisted internal pressure to sell AlphaTauri, saying his father’s ambition was to have two groups on the network.
Red Bull has spent much of the year in talks with companies, and ESPN added JP Morgan and Hugo Boss, over a naming partnership, but so far no deal has come to fruition.
AlphaTauri will compete with Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda in 2024.