McLaren boss says Formula One is a ‘healthier’ place without Christian Horner

Horner was sacked from his position on July 9, with the last 18 months of his tenure being overshadowed by an accusation from a female colleague of “coercive behaviour”. Horner always denied the claim and was twice exonerated.

The 51-year-old has been replaced by Laurent Mekies and Brown said he met the Frenchman ahead of Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

"I’m happy Laurent’s in the role he is in," Brown said.

"I like Laurent, that’ll be healthy, and maybe we can get back to focusing on competition on the track.

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"There’s always going to be some political aspects to the sport, but I think it is going to be healthier with Laurent. I’m a fan of Laurent, I have known him for a long time, and it’ll be good to go racing against him."

Horner and Brown are known to have not got along, both on and off the track.

Brown went on to say: "It went too far. There’s always going to be politicking in F1; let’s try and shut down their flexi-wings and that stuff, but when you start getting into frivolous allegations, that’s just going too far.

"If I look up and down pit lane now, I see us fighting each other hard politically, but the line is not being crossed, and that line got crossed before.

"So I think that we’ll see a little bit of a change for the better. There’s a higher level of trust that now if we sit down and have a conversation on a topic where we think there could be some confidentiality, and it’s just not an automatic: ‘I’m going to use that as a political weapon’.

"We’re going to be in a better place, a little bit more unified, and a little bit more trusting that while we’re fighting on track, we can have a conversation about what’s good for the sport off it. And that won’t get manipulated for political reasons and taken out of context."

Horner led Red Bull to 14 world championships in two decades in charge.