McLaren CEO Zak Brown expects his team's Formula 1 rivalry with Red Bull to be healthier following Christian Horner's departure, as he believes things had gone "too far" between them in the past.
Brown took the unusual step on race morning at the Hungarian Grand Prix of meeting privately with new Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies following his recent promotion from the Racing Bulls team.
After what has been a tense few years in relations between Brown and Mekies' predecessor - Brown suggested that he and Horner had never had such a one-on-one discussion in F1 - the get-together indicates that the dynamic between the two squads will be different going forward.
"I'm happy he's in the role he's in," said Brown of Mekies. "I like Laurent, and I think that'll be healthy, and maybe we can get back to focusing on competition on the track.
"While there's always going to be some political aspects to the sport, I think it's going to be healthier with Laurent.
"I'm a fan of Laurent. I’ve known him for a long time, and I think it'll be good to go racing against Laurent."
Brown believed that following several flash points between McLaren and Red Bull in recent years - which included allegations about tyre cooling tyres in Brazil last year - relations between the squads had deteriorated too much.
Reflecting on the state of play between McLaren and Red Bull, Brown said: "I think that it went too far. There's always going to be politicking, and let's try and shut down their flexi wings and that stuff.
"But when you start getting into frivolous allegations, I think that's just going too far.
"If I look up and down pitlane now, I see us fighting each other hard politically, but there being a line that's not crossed. I think that line got crossed before, and I think it was unhealthy. So I think that we'll see a little bit of a change for the better."
A different way of racing
Brown said he expected the rivalry between McLaren and Red Bull to be more similar to how his squad battles Ferrari and Mercedes: as tough competitors on track but friendly off it.
He specifically cited the way that Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur was happy to join in McLaren's celebrations of Lando Norris's maiden F1 success in Miami last year.
"I love the way we raced Ferrari," added Brown. "Fred [Vasseur] kind of started it by celebrating our Miami win.
"I've known Fred a long time. He's a proper racer, and the way we went racing - make no mistake about it, we want to beat each other - but I enjoyed that. I thought that was really good for the sport.
"From a fan's point of view, the drama of the villain stuff, I think works. But I also think the celebratory 'fight it out on track, but then kind of photobomb each other', which that all kind of just happened, that's really good.
"That's a more fun way to go racing, and can be just as entertaining as the good cop, bad cop thing."
Brown also reckoned that it was not just McLaren that would benefit from a healthier relationship with one of its main rivals - he said it would probably help F1 too.
"I also think it's important for the benefit of the sport, that we all can work together, and there's a higher level of trust," he said.
"That if we sit down and have a conversation on a topic, that we think that there can be some confidentiality to that, and it's just not an automatic: 'Well, I'm going to use that as a political weapon.'
"I think we're going to be in a better place to be a little bit more unified and a little bit more trusting that, while we're fighting it out on the track, we can have a conversation about what's good for the sport - and that won't get manipulated in a way for political reasons and taken out of context."
