McLaren CEO Zak Brown filed a formal letter with FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem last week seeking rule changes that would prohibit any future minority ownership stakes across multiple Formula One teams, according to three people familiar with the correspondence. The timing tracks Mercedes' ongoing discussions about taking minority positions in both Williams Racing and Aston Martin—structures Brown argues compromise competitive integrity even when stakes remain below 25 percent.
The letter, circulated among team principals before the FIA's February governance meeting, does not name Mercedes explicitly but references "recent market activity" and "structural conflicts inherent to shared capital allocation." Brown's ask: amend Article 8.3 of the Sporting Regulations to bar any entity from holding equity in more than one constructor, regardless of stake size or board representation. The current rule prohibits majority ownership across teams but leaves minority positions in a gray zone that Toto Wolff has openly explored since 2023, when he told Sky Sports that Mercedes "would consider strategic investments" if valuations were attractive.
The competitive argument is straightforward. If Mercedes owns 15 percent of Williams and 10 percent of Aston Martin while running its factory operation, Brown's concern is not espionage—teams already share wind tunnel data under technical partnership agreements—but resource triage during a cost-cap era. A Williams engineer designing a floor upgrade now works for a team partially owned by the constructor she'll race against in 14 days. Brown's letter asks: does that engineer receive Mercedes aero tools earlier than a Haas engineer? Does Wolff's capital allocation meeting prioritize factory upgrades or Williams' new simulator, given both sit on the same balance sheet?
The downstream effects touch sponsorship and broadcast negotiations. Liberty Media's franchise model, which values teams at roughly $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion depending on performance, assumes ten independent actors competing for the same prize money pool. If Mercedes effectively controls 35 percent of the grid through direct ownership and minority stakes, sponsors buying "exclusivity" in a category—say, a tire manufacturer partnering with McLaren—suddenly compete against a Wolff-influenced Williams that could pivot its partnership posture mid-season. The arithmetic matters to CMOs: rights fees are priced on competitive uncertainty, not quasi-vertical integration.
Brown's letter arrives as Williams' board evaluates three separate bids for minority stakes, according to two people familiar with the process. Mercedes is one. Another is a U.S.-based family office that also considered a minority position in Alpine last year. The third is described only as "a Gulf entity already active in motorsport," which could mean anyone from Qatar's sovereign wealth fund to a Saudi conglomerate that sponsors the Jeddah Grand Prix. Williams' owner Dorilton Capital, a private equity shop, bought the team for $150 million in 2020 and has since spent $80 million on factory upgrades. They are not selling control, but a 15 percent stake at today's valuations would return roughly $200 million—enough to fund another two years of cost-cap spending without further Dorilton checks.
Wolff has not commented publicly on Brown's letter, but his position is well-documented. In a Financial Times interview last October, he called multi-team ownership "a natural evolution" and cited the NFL's Green Bay Packers model, where the team is publicly owned but still competes. The analogy breaks down: Packers shareholders do not own stakes in the Kansas City Chiefs. Wolff's pitch to Williams is simpler: Mercedes' brand halo, technical partnerships already in place, and access to Brixworth's powertrain data justify a 15 percent discount to market value. Williams gets capital and continuity; Mercedes gets optionality if Wolff's factory team ever seeks a junior academy structure.
The FIA's governance process requires a simple majority of teams to amend sporting regulations, meaning Brown needs six votes. He likely has McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull—three constructors who vocally opposed budget-cap loopholes last season. Alpine and Haas are swing votes, both having explored partnerships with larger teams in the past year. Aston Martin, paradoxically, might vote against Brown's rule despite being a target of Wolff's interest: owner Lawrence Stroll has entertained minority offers before and may want the optionality himself.
The February 23 FIA governance meeting in Paris will surface the first count. If Brown's rule passes, any Mercedes-Williams deal signed after that date would violate sporting regulations, even if legally binding under UK contract law. Williams' board would need to pivot to a different bidder, likely the U.S. family office, or negotiate a technical partnership that stops short of equity. If the rule fails, expect Wolff to close at least one minority stake before the March 15 season opener in Bahrain—signaling to the grid that vertical integration is now a viable strategy for constructors with balance sheets to deploy.
Worth noting: Brown's McLaren is 75 percent owned by Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, which also holds stakes in Gulf Air and Batelco. The irony has not escaped paddock observers. Brown's argument is not about foreign capital—it is about competitive firewalls. But the optics matter. If the FIA sides with Brown, it validates the principle that ownership structures shape competitive balance, a principle that could later complicate Mumtalakat's own cross-border investments.
The next scheduled FIA governance meeting after February is June 4 in Montreal, the week of the Canadian Grand Prix. By then, the Williams board will have either closed its minority stake or walked away, and the grid will know whether Formula One's ownership model stays fragmented or begins to consolidate along Mercedes' lines.