Brown: The rules are a bit draconian

Brown spoke out about the disqualification of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri from the race in Las Vegas after both their cars were found to have suffered from excessive plank wear, which was down to porpoising.

In the meantime, McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has been putting on a brave face in front of the media when talking about the matter, presenting a professional example while accepting the blame for the mistake his team made, stating the facts and numbers.

That is unlike the approach Brown usually adopts by stirring the pot, but the American played down any conspiracy theories that were floating around, claiming the FIA targeted McLaren to maintain "jeopardy" in the final two rounds of the 2025 F1 season in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

"I've had a lot of people ask me," the American said of the rumors. "If that came out of my mouth, it would kind of feel like an excuse. So I'm kind of not going to go there. I'm going to kind of go, 'We got it wrong.'

"Yes, the rules are a bit draconian," he added, succumbing to his urge to incite some drama. "Yes, it didn't make a performance. Well, we got it wrong at the end of the day. And the rules are the rules. I can't sit here and enforce the rules on the competition and then, when they come our way, go, 'Well, kind of close is close enough.'

"I don't think that's the case. A lot of people do. I don't think that's the case," he maintained.

Brown went on playing down the seriousness of the mistake McLaren committed with their car setup in Las Vegas while also adding that the FIA, F1's governing body, agree with his stance on the rules.

"So it was a very minor mistake with huge consequences, right?" he said. "Getting disqualified from a race doesn't get worse. Second and fourth, I think we were. Wrong time. Many other teams have had the same violation.

"It's unintentional. It's not performance-enhancing," he insisted. "Ferrari and Mercedes have both been disqualified for the same thing in the last couple of years. But as I told the team, does that make us feel better? Not really.

"But what it does do is demonstrate these things do happen. It was the thickness of a piece of paper, crazy," he pointed out.

The McLaren boss was adamant that McLaren did not set their car up low and it was the bouncing that caused the skid wear; he continued: "There's two ways you can have too much skid wear—not to get overly technical.

"One is to run the car too low, which is illegal. The other is you can have what's called porpoising, which is in the aerodynamics of these cars. They effectively bump up and down, and that's what we had.

"And so we weren't running too low. What we had was too much porpoising that came from a lack of data coming out of Thursday and Friday, where all the sessions were raining. But yes, nine other teams did get it right. So at the end of the day, we got it wrong.

"The FIA is looking at it because they also feel that the penalty is a bit draconian, but it's what the rules say," Brown revealed in conclusion.

(Quotes from The Sports Agents podcast)