McLaren CEO Zak Brown’s push for teams to be independent, having
taken specific aim at the Austrian outfit. Brown wrote a letter to
the FIA earlier this year calling for stricter rules on multi-team
ownership models, arguing that it compromises sporting integrity
and should be phased out. In his letter, the McLaren boss included
multiple examples of Red Bull and its sister team Racing Bulls
helping each other. The 54-year-old effectively wants to see the
two outfits split, although Coulthard believes it should be
remembered how much good Red Bull has done for Racing Bulls. Since
purchasing Minardi and turning it into a Red Bull sister operation,
the team has gone from being a comfortable backmarker to a regular
points scorer and a consistent presence in the final part of
qualifying. Asked if Racing Bulls could ever not be owned by Red
Bull, Coulthard told the Up to Speed podcast: “Yeah, well, look,
those are definitely the sort of comments we’ve heard publicly from
Zak Brown at McLaren. “I think Toto may also have referred to
independence and the importance of teams being independent, so
there’s clearly a sort of momentum building towards that. “But I
don’t believe there’s been an official directive on it, and nothing
has been announced. So, from a Red Bull point of view, they have,
for a long time, owned two Formula 1 teams and a Formula 1 circuit.
“If you look at that, they’ve helped what was a small midfield team
become a viable top-10 team. They were never that when Red Bull
bought into them.” Red Bull major profit guaranteed Red Bull has
used its sister team as a pathway for young talent, with several
drivers within its junior system, such as Max Verstappen and Carlos
Sainz, having broken into F1 through it. Should it reach a point
where the Austrian organisation is forced to sell, it would at
least make a staggering profit based on the value of F1 teams today
compared to 20 years ago. “So I think, if you look at snapshots in
time… If you actually look at the bigger picture, they’ve
invested, and if they ever have to sell, with the work that Formula
1, Liberty and everyone else has done, they’re going to see a
sizeable return on their investment,” Coulthard added. “Teams have
gone from being valued at what Williams sold for — less than $200
million — to probably being worth $3 billion now, or whatever
number you want to dream up.”