Mekies admits Verstappen “takes the risk” with Red Bull
Laurent Mekies had an instant impact when he became Red Bull team principal, rejuvenating their mid-season development and finding ways to extract more performance from a problematic and often non-compliant RB21.
This is not to say everything was smooth sailing last year. In order to maximise Verstappen’s title chances, upgrades on Yuki Tsunoda’s car were essentially abandoned. By making this sacrifice, the Austrian team could cut costs whilst also bringing improvements to the #1 machine.
Regardless, Mekies’ technical background makes him well-placed to oversee this transitional phase for the team.
The question is whether Red Bull’s engine will be close enough to the benchmark (widely expected to be Mercedes) when 2026 begins. Realistically, matching the Silver Arrows from the first Grand Prix is not necessarily a realistic target.
Instead, Red Bull want their power unit to be sufficiently close to Mercedes so that their aerodynamic department is within striking range. In many ways, a reliable engine that is reasonable efficient would be a good enough starting point to kick-off 2026.
Speaking at the Autosport Business Exchange, Laurent Mekies spoke about the challenge of delivering Verstappen with a winning car:
“One of the many incredible things with Max is that he’s not sitting outside of the project, watching what we do and judging what we do.
“He is in the project. He takes the risk with us, he’s aware of the risk taking.”
Mekies made sure to emphasise that Verstappen is conscious of the position Red Bull are in:
“He’s aware that we take risks, as do Ford, he’s aware of the scale of the challenge. He lives and breathes motorsport – more than a large part of us…
“We think Max wants a fast car. So we think the best way to make sure he wants to stay with us for as long as we can imagine, is to give him a fast car. A combination of a fast chassis and a fast power unit.
“As we say, we may not get that at the right level for race one. But because he understands so well motorsport, he will see the trajectories.
“And hopefully we can show him a strong enough trajectory that he feels this group of people is going to produce the fastest car possible.”
