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McLaren Racing’s chief executive Zak Brown has denied in court stringing along a star driver in the US Indycar competition by dangling the prospect of a Formula 1 seat to recruit him to the team.
Brown was testifying at the High Court in London on Tuesday in a $20.7mn lawsuit McLaren has brought against championship driver Alex Palou for alleged breach of contract. It claims Palou, 28, a four-time Indycar winner, reneged on a deal to drive for McLaren’s Indycar team after accepting a “big money offer” to stay with rivals Chip Ganassi Racing.
Under cross examination from Palou’s barrister, Nick De Marco KC, Brown told the court that he never strung along Palou and that his presumption was that the driver believed that McLaren Indycar would be a “top team”.
The McLaren chief, who made £37mn in 2024, denied that he had in the past used “false promises” of F1 glory to win over Indycar drivers.
IndyCar champion Alex Palou is accused of alleged breach of contract in a London lawsuit © Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
The lawsuit comes as Brown has overseen a turnaround at UK-based McLaren F1, sealing the constructors’ championship for the second year in a row at the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday. The team’s racers — Australia’s Oscar Piastri and Britain’s Lando Norris — lead the hunt for the drivers’ title this year.
While McLaren is best known for its exploits in F1, Brown has set his sights on Indycar. The group took a majority stake in its Indycar team in 2021 and bought the remaining shares in late 2024. However, the breakdown of a deal to bring Palou on board caused consternation at McLaren. Palou won the Indycar title in just his second season in 2021 and won his fourth title this year.
Paul Goulding KC, for McLaren, said in written arguments that the star driver “cynically decided that a big money offer to stay with CGR was more important than honouring his contract”.
He said McLaren was “plunged into crisis mode by Mr Palou’s deliberate breach of contract. His unlawful actions caused deep consternation among McLaren’s sponsors, whose expectations had been cast aside overnight.”
“McLaren had to find a replacement driver at short notice, yet there was no one available of Mr Palou’s calibre. Sponsors withheld payments in the wake of Mr Palou’s U-turn and made abundantly clear to McLaren that sponsorship agreements would have to be renegotiated.”
But lawyers for Palou argue that McLaren’s claim is “vastly inflated” and amounted to “a barefaced attempt to ‘take Mr Palou to the cleaners’”.
De Marco, representing the driver, said in written arguments McLaren has “sought to lay at Mr Palou’s door a series of remote, speculative and unevidenced losses”.
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He said that Palou was drawn to McLaren by the prospect of racing in F1.
But he said it became increasingly apparent that he would be driving for McLaren’s IndyCar team, not F1.
McLaren announced in 2022 that Piastri would partner Norris the following season. They are now the top duo in F1 in terms of points collected this season.
“There was a disappointment of Mr Palou’s hopes and expectations. If Mr Palou was going to remain in IndyCar, not race in F1, then he ultimately preferred to remain with CGR.”
The case continues.
