Zak Brown claims that the sport is better off without Chrisitan Horner.

Though he stops short of saying it, McLaren boss Brown, who like Toto Wolff had numerous run ins with the former Red Bull boss, believes Horner was toxic.

"I'm happy Laurent's in the role he is in," said the American. "I like Laurent, maybe we can get back to focusing on competition on the track.

"There's always going to be some political aspects to the sport," acknowledged the McLaren boss, "but I think it is going to be healthier with Laurent.

"I'm a fan of Laurent," he added, "I have known him for a long time, and it'll be good to go racing against him.

"It went too far," he said of his confrontations with Horner. "There's always going to be politicking in F1," he admitted, "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."

However, the American admits that it is unlikely the sport has seen the last of the Briton.

"I presume he'll be back. He's young, he's a racer, and he's got pretty awesome credentials."