# McLaren Letter Could Put Red Bull’s Billion-Dollar F1 Team in Jeopardy

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/from-the-paddock-7849908/mclaren-letter-could-put-red-bull-s-billion-dollar-f1-team-in-jeopardy
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Podcast: [From the Paddock](https://stenobird.com/podcast/from-the-paddock-7849908)
Published: 2026-05-17T23:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://rss.art19.com/episodes/53ca73ec-afa8-46ba-8cad-bc18362b1110.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg90cmFuc2NyaWJyBjoGRVQ%3D--952c5701c84ad333c69d5faa668f8177091704f0
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Duration seconds: 1461

## Resource

In this episode, Alex and Lydia take a look at McLaren team principal Zak Brown’s letter to the FIA arguing F1 should ban one company from owning two teams. The obvious target is Red Bull, but the more pressing one is Mercedes' rumoured Alpine move. They explore what the letter contained, Ben Sulayem's response, and what this could mean for the whole grid. Elsewhere, Alex and Lydia explore Verstappen's Nürburgring heartbreak. Max Verstappen led the Nürburgring 24 Hours for much of the race before a driveshaft failure with 3.5 hours to go ended his victory hopes. We recap the race, look at his odd run of GT3 bad luck this year, and ask what these weekends spent on the Nordschleife tell us about his future in F1. Finally, Fernando Alonso has just taken delivery of a one-of-one Pagani Zonda in Monaco — complete with a custom Recaro child seat matching his 2026 helmet design, made for his newborn son Leonardo. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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