Zak Brown accused of ‘deceiving’ Alex Palou to join ‘second-class’ McLaren as $20m court dispute begins
Zak Brown's McLaren have begun a court case against Alex Palou.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown has been accused of “deceiving” Alex Palou over the prospect of an F1 seat as a $20m court case began in London.
McLaren is seeking damages from the IndyCar driver and his sponsors after he backed out of an agreement to join the team in 2023.
McLaren’s court case against Alex Palou begins
Palou, a four-time IndyCar Champion, was announced as McLaren’s next IndyCar driver in October 2022 and was signed to join the team for 2024, 2025 and 2026 but later went back on the agreement, choosing to instead remain with Chip Ganassi.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown told the media including PlanetF1.com at the time that Palou had “informed us that he has no intention of honouring his contract with us in IndyCar or Formula 1″, with the matter landing the two parties in the London High Court as McLaren seeks damages.
McLaren claim the refusal to honour the deal, which Palou has admitted to, cost it $1.3m in additional driver salary costs, $15.5m in sponsor losses and $4m in performance-based revenue that it could have had from having him in the team.
But Palou’s side argues that it does not owe any compensation and he was deceived over a possible spot in the F1 team.
Counsel for both sides made opening statements this week with Palou’s solicitor claiming he was deceived over his F1 future.
“Zak Brown enticed Mr Palou to leave Chip Ganassi and join McLaren with no greater regard to the contractual obligations as it is alleged Mr Palou had,” Palou’s solicitor Nick De Marco KC said.
“He did so in his typical style of negotiating, playing drivers and teams against each other. He was able to convince Mr Palou if he joined McLaren he could really get into an F1 seat.
“Almost as soon as Mr Palou was posting his delight, he discovered Oscar Piastri was posting a similar message, having been recruited by McLaren from Alpine.
“It became apparent that Mr Palou had made a mistake by joining McLaren. He felt he had been deceived by Zak Brown leading him on to believe he would be promoted to F1 when that was likely never Zak Brown’s intention.
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“The only reason he contemplated joining a second-class team was that his main interest was to go to F1 with the team of many successful racing drivers.”
McLaren meanwhile accused Palou of being a “serial contract breaker” but that he was also a “generational talent.”
“The breach of contract deprived McLaren over a period of four years of the services of the most successful IndyCar driver of the current generation,” Paul Goulding KC said, representing McLaren.
“He’s described variously as a generational talent, a goat. His record speaks for himself.”
Both parties will continue to put forward their case ahead of its expected conclusion in November.
