FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has agreed with Zak Brown that team protests should be accompanied with a sizeable deposit in order to discourage frivolous complaints.

Brown raised the point after Red Bull reportedly hinted McLaren’s cooling of their tyres was illegal, something Brown disputed.

FIA president backs protest fee claim made by Zak Brown

During the tail end of last season, reports from Germany suggested that Red Bull believed McLaren were injecting water into the tyres in order to improve cooling, an accusation that is yet to see any evidence produced.

Brown clearly did not like the suggestion, writing “tire water” on his bottle in Miami, making a point to drink from it when the camera cut to him, and the McLaren CEO has now said teams should not be able to protest just on a whim.

“[The water bottle] was poking fun at a serious issue, which is teams have historically made allegations of other teams. Most recently, one team focuses on that strategy more than others,” Brown said.

“There’s a proper way to protest a team at the end of the race, and you have to make it formal, disclose where it comes from, put some money down.

“I think that process should be extended to all allegations to stop the frivolous allegations which are intended only to be a distraction.

“So if you had to put up some money and put on paper and not backchannel what your allegations are, I think that would be a way to clean up the bogus allegations that happened in this sport, which are not very sporting.

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“And if someone does believe there’s a technical issue, by all means you’re entitled to it. Put it on paper, put your money down.

“It should come against your cost cap if it turns out you’re wrong, and I think that will significantly stop the bogus allegations that come from some teams in the sport.”

Now, FIA president Ben Sulayem has agreed with Brown and suggested a figure as high as $50,000 could be used.

“You cannot just accuse someone without a written complaint, and that protest, you have to pay money,” he told AP.

Ben Sulayem also commented on the cost cap, suggesting the “headache” could be removed in the future.

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