Brown plays down McLaren sale talk

Jan.3 - Zak Brown thinks his impact at McLaren can be felt immediately in 2017.

The former F1 sponsorship guru has now left that role to become the new executive at the Woking team, whose founder and long time chief Ron Dennis was ousted amid a shareholder dispute.

"There's trouble between (them)," Brown confirmed to the Financial Times. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I've deliberately kept my space and know that what all shareholders want are world championships."

He said that title ambition is on track for this decade.

However, he admitted that F1's most successful teams out-spent McLaren-Honda by $100 million in 2016, and that is compounded by a dip in results-based official prize money.

So Brown plans to do what he does best, and find new sponsors.

"I definitely would be shocked if I didn't have some commercial contribution in 2017," the American said.

But amid rumours of a buyout by Apple or a Chinese consortium, Brown played down talk McLaren will be sold.

"That's for the shareholders to decide," he insisted.

"I would not be surprised to be sitting in a McLaren uniform at a grand prix ten years from now."

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