McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has submitted a formal letter to the FIA requesting immediate rule changes to prohibit any future ownership overlap between Formula 1 teams. The letter, sent this week, marks Brown's first direct regulatory appeal on the topic after twelve months of public comments about governance risk.
Brown's letter follows persistent rumors that at least two current F1 ownership groups have held exploratory conversations about minority cross-stakes or shared holding-company structures. The teams are not named in Brown's correspondence. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem received the document on Tuesday. Brown has not requested a new sporting tribunal or emergency World Motor Sport Council session, signaling he expects the matter to route through the standard governance calendar.
The timing is structural. F1's grid valuation rose 42 percent between January 2023 and December 2024, according to Forbes' annual team assessments, with the median franchise now worth approximately $2.1 billion. That valuation climb has attracted family offices, sovereign wealth allocators, and private equity platforms looking for entry points below outright acquisition cost. Minority stakes and creative ownership layering become rational when full team purchases command ten-figure checks. Brown's concern is that passive investment capital eventually wants board seats, and board seats on two teams create the kind of structural conflict the sport banned decades ago when tobacco conglomerates owned multiple entries.
McLaren itself navigated complex ownership: Bahrain's Mumtalakat sovereign fund holds 60 percent of McLaren Group, while MSP Sports Capital, a New York-based consortium, owns roughly 33 percent of McLaren Racing specifically. Brown has structured those stakes to ensure operational independence, and his letter reportedly uses McLaren's governance model as the compliance benchmark—distinct legal entities, separate boards, no shared executives above team principal level. The subtext is clear: Brown wants the FIA to codify what McLaren already practices before someone else tries a cheaper version.
The immediate risk is not conspiracy but inefficiency. If Team A's sponsor negotiator sits in the same Thursday morning investment committee meeting as Team B's commercial director, confidential rate cards leak without intent. If a single allocator influences driver academy funding at two teams, one academy gets optimized and the other gets the leftover budget. Brown has spent $41 million building McLaren's driver development infrastructure since 2021, according to the team's public financial statements filed in the UK. He does not want that edge diluted by a rival borrowing from the same passive capital source and gaining indirect intelligence.
The FIA has three enforcement windows. The first is the April World Motor Sport Council meeting in Bahrain, where governance amendments can pass with a simple majority. The second is June's strategy group gathering, where the ten F1 teams hold negotiating leverage. The third is October's regulatory freeze deadline for 2026 rule packages, after which any ownership structure change requires unanimous consent. Brown's letter landing now suggests he expects April action.
Watch for two indicators. One: whether any current team ownership group files a counter-letter within the next two weeks, which would signal someone has capital waiting and wants room to deploy it. Two: whether Liberty Media, F1's commercial rights holder, comments before the Bahrain council session. Liberty profits when franchise values rise, and rising values attract complex investors. If Liberty stays silent, Brown's firewall likely passes. If Liberty requests a study period, Brown has a fight.
The takeaway
Brown's FIA letter formalizes what he's said publicly for months: codify ownership limits before valuations pull in structures the sport can't unwind later.
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