McLaren baffled at Red Bull's stance on F1 Commission voting procedure

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8 May 2021 at 10:25
Last update 8 May 2021 at 11:50
  • GPblog.com

McLaren would like to see a secret voting for proposals in the F1 Commission. According to Zak Brown cronyism currently prevails and AlphaTauri will always make the same choice as big brother Red Bull Racing. McLaren wants to change the procedure, but it meets a lot of resistance from other team owners.

Red Bull is not in favour and Christian Horner said he 'regrets' the introduction of secret ballots. Brown is fed up with this attitude.

Smaller teams have a special vote

When negotiating the budget cap last year, some smaller teams made striking choices, McLaren said. "So you had teams that were close to the cap and they suddenly started supporting a much bigger budget, which makes no sense at all. I can tell you that it often happens that teams vote against their own interests."

A team like Haas F1 gets an awful lot of parts from Ferrari, but chances are the Italian racehorse expects (directly or indirectly) Guenther Steiner's team to vote the same way. McLaren itself has never had such a request from its engine supplier. "Mercedes has never asked us to vote in a direction we didn't want. But when you look around the room [during a vote] and you see who is voting for what, it very often raises eyebrows," Brown said.