McLaren director urges other teams to back Liberty Media

McLaren Executive Director Zak Brown has backed Liberty Media to succeed in their tenure as owners of Formula One and has urged other constructor teams such as Mercedes and Ferrari to retreat in their criticism of the American owners in the wake of the controversial proposed regulation changes.

Liberty Media have been in charge of the sport for nearly a year now, and have attracted a negative response from F1 teams for their proposals to standardise engine parts, distribute prize money more evenly, and limit the amount of engines allowed per season to three.

Ferrari have been the biggest critics of the new alterations, and have even threatened to leave the sport altogether if compromises are not made. Brown has pushed teams such as the Scuderia to be more constructive in their talks with Liberty, who he believes have the sport's best interests in mind.

"We want there to be as much prize money as possible," he said.

"We knew there was going to be some investment, I think a few people are getting a little too excited.

"They're [Liberty] not even one year into it, they've bought something that had lots of elements that were broken and you're not going to repair a broken leg in two weeks.

"I think the direction is the right direction, I think their intentions are the right intentions. It's going to take a little bit of time and I think we need to give them support and work with them and maybe be a little less critical and more constructive."

"We've got a lot of excitement, there's a good buzz around Formula 1, TV ratings up, live attendance is up, there's new owners, [there's a] strategic vision," Brown continued.

"There's momentum behind Formula 1 and then there's momentum behind McLaren.

"We've got Fernando [Alonso], we've got Stoffel [Vandoorne], we've got Lando [Norris] coming through the ranks, we've got new engine partners.

"Generally we feel there's some wind at the tail as opposed to a head wind."