McLaren’s Zak Brown sides with Renault’s views on the b-team debate but has praise for the teams who have managed to use the F1 rule book smartly.
The debate around b-team has been on for sometime now especially with how Haas has managed to model itself to use the services of Ferrari and Dallara to prepare a competitive car – enough to fight well in the midfield F1 pack.
Looking the progress that Haas has made, even Toro Rosso decided to extract as much from Red Bull Racing. Although Alfa Romeo Racing doesn’t sides as much with Ferrari but it can be called an unofficial b-team considering FIAT owns Alfa Romeo.
Renault has been forefront in their view regarding the b-teams, while Williams has also said that they want to preserve its constructors’ status. Joining Renault and Williams in the b-team talk is McLaren but Brown has also praised Haas and Toro Rosso for their work.
“Of course we share concerns with Renault,” said Brown. “I think the way the sport has grown has enabled teams to be able to do new business, if you like, with other teams and we’d like to see the sport come back to more of a purity of a constructor.
“They’ve done a great job, we all know what the rule book allows and so they’ve done an excellent job with it but we’d like to see everyone be a little bit more independent moving forward.” Responding to Brown and Cyril Abiteboul, Toro Rosso’s Franz Tost came hard.
“First of all, if someone, who runs a manufacturer team [referring to Renault] is complaining that the small teams are faster and better than him, then he hasn’t simply done his homework in a proper way,” said Tost.
“Because we at a Toro Rosso, we have started taking the gearbox from Red Bull from last year, the rear suspension from last year and parts from the front suspension – most of the front suspension we’ve anyway done ourselves.
“So, the reason why Toro Rosso is so competitive is mainly because of the fantastic power unit which we have from Honda. It seems that others are not doing such a good job and therefore they should not complain and wingeing around.
“They just should do their job. We have a good package together with the car, fantastic drivers and a fantastic power unit from Honda, that’s the reason why we are competitive.” In addition, Haas’ Guenther Steiner once again was on a defence mode.
“Leave us alone, leave us doing our job,” he started. “You know, we are fine, get back to yourselves. I think a lot of these manufacturer teams should also see the opportunities they are given because they want to take something away from us. We didn’t invent it.
“Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Haas, Ferrari didn’t invent this. This was there, we took it, this model and they did. If they want to do it they can do it but we are not going to say you have to do it, so we are not the people which want to take something away from the manufacturers.
“If you think your way is the better one, have it like that. Good luck and I wish them well, but if you don’t deliver, if you are yourself your own problem, because you don’t do it well, don’t blame other people doing a different job for doing it well.
“And trying to diminish what they are doing by making it worse, because in doing that, the gap will grow, because at the moment the teams which have these affiliations with the big teams, they are getting closer to the top three and that’s what it should be.
“If we are knocked down, then we create, instead of a two tier society, it will be a three tier. There will be the works teams, the good ones, then we will have the bad works teams and then there will be us so what have we achieved then for the sport? That is our principle.
“We don’t try to take anything away from anybody. It was there, it was decided, democratically years ago, that this is a model which can work. We read the rules, some other people didn’t and here we are, so I think it’s a model which is pretty good to go forwards.”
The b-team model isn’t illegal as per the FIA rule book. The teams have been clever to extract as much from a senior team by staying within the rules – so far it hasn’t been an issue but with Haas being the first one to use, it came into limelight for debate.
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