Warwick Brown

Racing Point was hit with a 15-point constructors' championship penalty and a €400,000 fine last week for breaching the sporting regulations in the design of the brake ducts on its 2020 car.<br>The team was deemed to have copied the design of Mercedes' 2019 brake ducts, having been open in its bid to reverse engineer last year's title-winner in producing the RP20 through photography.<br>McLaren ...

read on

The Woking outfit made it clear that it needed to secure extra financing in order to help it through the crisis, and also announced that it would trim its staff levels.<br>In June, the team arranged a loan from Bahrain’s National Bank, and in addition in recent weeks it has announced several new sponsorship deals, including a renewed arrangement with Gulf Oil, previously a partner of the team ...

read on

At the moment only eight races are formally scheduled, starting in Austria next week, although more are expected to be confirmed in the coming days.<br>F1 CEO Chase Carey has consistently said that there will be a calendar of at least 15 races, but he has struggled to confirm any events outside Europe thus far.<br>Asked how tough it would be for the teams had the season not resumed ...

read on

Brown, a part-owner of the Walkinshaw Andretti United Supercars squad, has thrown his support behind the idea of the two F1 aces teaming up for a wildcard tilt at Bathurst in a WAU Holden once Ricciardo joins McLaren.<br>The determining factor, according to Brown, will be the Formula 1 and Supercars calendars, with the Bathurst 1000 and Japanese Grand Prix traditionally falling on the same ...

read on

Brown says Carlos Sainz’s move to Ferrari for 2021 was handled openly and amicably, while in contrast he sees “bad blood” at both the Maranello outfit and Renault, where the impending exits of Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo have been accompanied by some tension between the parties.<br>Brown says that McLaren knew that Sainz had an opportunity to go to Ferrari, and formally gave him ...

read on

Brown also believes that there could be more "fireworks" in the Ferrari camp involving Vettel and Charles Leclerc when this season's action finally gets under way.<br>Brown says he knew over the winter that there was a chance that Sainz could leave at the end of this year, and that he was in contact with Ferrari.<br>He had thus already lined up Ricciardo, who came close to joining the Woking team ...

read on

F1 is hopeful of reducing the performance gaps between teams under the new technical regulations starting in 2022, aided by a budget cap that will come into force next year.<br>Just three teams - Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull - have scored race wins in the last six seasons, with the last victory outside those teams coming for Lotus at the 2013 Australian Grand Prix.<br>By comparison, 11 IndyCar ...

read on

F1 teams are currently working on ways to cut costs ahead of the anticipated economic crisis following the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already forced the opening 10 races of the 2020 season to be called off.<br>The 2020 cars will be carried over to '21 in order to save development costs for next year, while the budget cap coming into force is set to be reduced from $175 million to $145m.<br>Red ...

read on

But he argues that the sport needs to do a better job of planning contingencies, like a further outbreak of coronavirus among team members, than it did at the aborted Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.<br>Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com for the #thinkingforward series of interviews with the sport’s leaders, Brown said that starting the series in early July with two races in Austria and ...

read on

Ferrari was at the centre of controversy earlier this year when it was announced that it had reached a private agreement with the FIA to formally conclude an investigation into the legality of its engine.<br>The deal was struck because the FIA did not want a lengthy court case over the matter, having been unable to prove Ferrari broke the rules with the Italian outfit adamant it had been legal at ...

read on

The F1 season is currently on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic, with the first nine events of the 2020 campaign having been cancelled or postponed.<br>Although the first scheduled race is the French Grand Prix on June 28, it is unlikely that will be able to go ahead because of ongoing restrictions on public gatherings.<br>Last week, F1 CEO Chase Carey outlined to teams the idea of getting ...

read on

Brown also likened the two teams to "a heavyweight who only wants to fight middleweights" as they continue to defend their financial and thus competitive advantage.<br>Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, teams have provisionally agreed to lower the 2021 cost cap from $175m to $150m.<br>However, in a video meeting of F1 bosses on Monday, Brown and others backed a further drop to $125m. Of the ...

read on

With no races currently taking place, all teams are facing a financial squeeze.<br>They still have significant overheads such as salaries, while facing the prospect a future loss of income from both the F1 prize fund and their own sponsors.<br>Brown believes that the sport should take steps such as further lowering the budget cap that comes into force in 2021.<br>He also warned that if teams do ...

read on

McLaren currently lies fourth in the world championship, having regularly won the “best of the rest” midfield battle in recent races.<br>And Brown believes it is not just the improved MCL34 but strong performances from the two drivers that have given McLaren an edge over its nearest rivals.<br>“We’re very happy with both our drivers, they’re both very quick they get along very well, they ...

read on

On the back of a major restructuring, which has included the recent arrival of Andreas Seidl as team principal, the outfit has currently established itself in fourth place in the standings.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Brown: McLaren in "total clarity" now that Seidl is here<br>McLaren says it might revisit F1 efficiency push <br><br><br>For McLaren CEO Zak Brown, the changes that he has helped ...

read on

Former Porsche LMP1 head Seidl kicked off his new role with McLaren at the Spanish Grand Prix earlier this month, joining technical director James Key as McLaren F1 CEO Zak Brown’s second major new recruit of 2019.<br>That followed the promotion of Andrea Stella to performance director and Gil de Ferran to sporting director, in the wake of Eric Boullier’s exit last summer.<br>Asked by ...

read on

Seidl, who used to head Porsche's efforts in WEC, joined McLaren earlier this month and had his first race in his new role at the Spanish Grand Prix.<br>But while Seidl has been given responsibility for running the racing team, Brown says that does not mean that he will be lessening his own involvement in the outfit.<br>"No, no, no, I definitely don't take a step back," said Brown, when asked by ...

read on

Following McLaren’s return to the Indianapolis 500 with Fernando Alonso as part of the Andretti Autosport team in 2017, McLaren and Alonso are heading back to IMS this year with an independent project, albeit in a relationship with sophomore IndyCar squad Carlin Racing which will see an exchange of data and feedback.<br>Attending the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach to compete in one of the ...

read on

The sport’s owners are pushing ahead with an overhaul of F1 from 2021, when a new car concept, a budget cap and a fairer revenue distribution model should serve to make grand prix racing closer and more exciting.<br>But not all teams are yet convinced by Liberty’s vision, with the big manufacturer outfits like Ferrari and Mercedes sceptical about some of the proposals.<br>Brown, who has been ...

read on

Brown had originally planned to miss the Suzuka race so he could experience his first Bathurst 1000, a decision inspired by his part-ownership of the Walkinshaw Andretti United Supercars squad. Having made those plans public during the Australian GP back in March things have since changed for the McLaren boss, and he is set to head to Japan rather than Mount Panorama. A McLaren spokesperson ... ...

read on

The sport's current commercial rights agreements limit teams to running the same colour scheme on both cars for the entire season. Back in 1999, BAR famously tried to run different tobacco sponsors on its two cars but was prevented from doing so and instead ran a dual-sided livery with a zip down the middle. Speaking at the Motorsport Leaders Business Forum in London on Wednesday, Brown said ... ...

read on

In the wake of a growing performance gulf between the top three teams and the rest of the grid, the near collapse of Force India, and a situation where top drivers like Esteban Ocon may miss out on seats, Brown thinks the time has come for action. He believes that rather than Liberty respond to the difficulties by adopting a cautious attitude, he suggests that the events should make it even ... ...

read on

In the wake of the resignation of racing director Eric Boullier, which has prompted a reshuffling of technical staff, Brown is under no illusions about the scale of the outfit's problems.With its disappointing form at the start of 2018 having exposed clear weaknesses, Brown is working on a major overhaul that he hopes can get it back to the front.Reflecting on why the former ...

read on

The Woking-based outfit announced on Tuesday that the McLaren Group was now being split into three clear divisions – McLaren Applied Technologies, McLaren Automotive and McLaren Racing.Previously, there had been two sides to the company - McLaren Automotive and the McLaren Technology Group, which comprised Racing, Applied Technologies and Marketing.The decision to simplify the ...

read on

As has been the case in recent years the Suzuka and Mount Panorama races clash on the first weekend of October. However, Brown has already decided that he'll skip Japan and make the long trek to Bathurst to watch over the Walkinshaw Andretti United squad that he part-owns.The primary motivation, according to Brown, is a long-held desire to check out Australia's biggest Touring Car ...

read on