In an open letter from the McLaren Managing Director, Brown discusses his issues with some teams having the same ownership in the sport.
His open letter rounding out the 2023 Season discusses the highs and lows the team faced throughout the year, but noteably touches on the controversial topic that is the ownership of two teams within the same series. Although never mentioned explicitly, he is obviously referring to Red Bull and AlphaTauri sharing ownership, and the potential risks this might pose to fairness within the sport.
"Most other major sports prohibit the ownership of two teams within the same league because of the obvious potential damage that it does to competition" - Zak Brown
He goes on to list the potential areas where having ownership of two teams could mean information, or strategy calls may be shared between the teams benefiting one or the other.
"Whether it’s a case of having access to more data, sharing components, personnel, or even having influence over a strategic vote, it’s not in the spirit of the regulations." - Zak Brown
Earlier in the week, speaking to Autosport, Zak Brown said explicitly that they "have some big concerns over the alliance between AlphaTauri and Red Bull".
This has been a constant topic of conversation for a while now, as despite other teams - notebaly Mercedes with Aston Martin, McLaren & Williams - being known to share components such as power units as customer teams, the situation with Red Bull and AlphaTauri is different as these two share the same shareholders.
Christian Horner has previously denied the relationship to be any different from other customer teams in the field.
"AlphaTauri is owned by the same shareholders as Red Bull Racing, but of course, the way that they operate is independent from Red Bull Racing." - Christian Horner
However, with the future rebranding of AlphaTauri on the horizon, it looks as though they are planning to step away from their relationship with Red Bull somewhat, and become a more independent team on the grid.