Zak Brown explains “tire water” bottle, says F1 must rethink protest fees

McLaren’s Zak Brown has explained his “tire water” labelled drinks bottle is a dig at claims over the team’s tyre temperature management.

Following suggestions that McLaren is bending the rules with how it keeps its tyres cool, Brown says that F1 needs to ensure teams have to pay more to ward off “frivolous” claims about any technical issues.

These allegations are understood to come from Red Bull, which believes that McLaren has managed to keep its tyres and brakes cool with a supply of water to ensure that the MCL39 does not suffer from overheating in this area.

F1 already has a protest mechanism in place, and the FIA sporting regulations detail that a deposit of €2000 should be made along with any protests submitted by a team.

However, Brown has suggested that this should go further, and says that any publicly aired concerns about another team’s car should ensure that this is “put on paper” to deter any “bogus” allegations.

“[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.

“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.”

Asked what financial figure he’d suggest to put on a protest, Brown said that it would need to be a “meaningful” amount to ensure a team would feel the effect of it.

This, in his view, would ensure any protests would have to be a commitment and affect the team’s car development budget.

“It needs to be meaningful from a ‘I’m choosing to spend money on that instead of my own racing car’ [point of view]. We’re all right at the limit of the budget gap.

“I know we will not waste a dollar on anything that we don’t think brings performance, so it’s probably 25 grand. Would I spend 25,000 on a distraction tactic or develop my own race car? I’d spend it on my race car all day long, so I think it needs to be.

“It doesn’t need to be hundreds of thousands. But it needs to be meaningful enough that you’re taking away performance you could be spending on your car, about having to make it so that they go through the proper channels, to make sure these aren’t just allegations.

“There’s something serious that gets investigated.”

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