McLaren boss Zak Brown wants to bring back dangerous F1 practice: 'It would be cool!'

Zak Brown, McLaren, generic, 2025 — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

'It would be cool!' McLaren boss Zak Brown wants to bring back dangerous F1 practice

Good luck with that one...

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Wednesday 7 January 2026 21:12

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McLaren boss Zak Brown has encouraged the sport to bring back refuelling in the future, after the practice was banned more than a decade ago.

Safety issues during refuelling pitstops were cited at the time as the reason for cars instead being sent out with a full, larger tank of fuel, with stops now a tyre change-only affair.

Despite a couple of scary-looking incidents in the 1990s, which saw Jos Verstappen and Eddie Irvine's cars briefly ablaze in back to back years, no driver or mechanic was ever seriously hurt as a result of a pit lane fire, with only a few notable incidents in the sport's history of the process going wrong.

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Speaking to Talksport, Brown said: "I think if we got back into refuelling, it would be cool. That would make pit stops, add another dimension to it, but also add a big strategic dimension.

Zak Brown: Being back refuelling in F1

"If you got into refuelling, weight makes such a difference. Do you run heavy at the start and go long? Do you run light to get a better start? So I would add a lot of dimensions to the strategy that I think would be fascinating."

The Verstappen fire is the most famous of the lot, but despite the Dutchman's helmet being open at the time of the fire (which was attributed to the absence of a safety filter which they, and a number of other teams, had chosen to remove), he himself said he was 'pretty much fine' after a quick medical check-up after the race.

Some members of his pit crew suffered burns – Simon Morley most severely – and received medical attention after the incident, although not before some pretty low-tech attempts to pour cold water on themselves, with Morley and Paul Seaby 'standing in a bath sharing a hose' and Wayne Bennett attempting to cool off the injury to his ankle and back of his foot by putting it in a nearby toilet and flushing it repeatedly, with Seaby saying they 'had a bit of a laugh' attempting to self-treat.

While Brown and a number of prominent F1 figures, including Lewis Hamilton, have advocated for the reintroduction of refuelling into the sport, it's unlikely to ever happen. While the safety issues are significantly lower than the striking image of Paul Seaby on fire at Hockenheim might suggest, the cost of transporting the large refuelling rigs around the world is a significant obstacle in a sport attempting to keep costs down.

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