How studying Tost, Whiting and Binotto shaped F1's latest team boss 

“You should go to another team now, learn something new, get more experience and then come back to us.”

Given Franz Tost’s penchant for dry humour, you wouldn’t know how serious he was in suggesting that his then-chief race engineer, Laurent Mekies, should leave – in order to return down the line armed with new knowledge and ideas.

And although Tost insists he was joking, Mekies – who had spent 12 years with the Faenza-based outfit from 2002 to 2014 – ended up doing as he was told.

“That’s how direct he could be!” Laurent laughs as GP Racing reminds him of the story Tost repeatedly told following the news that Mekies would replace him as team principal. “When at some stage, having spent a number of years together, we were looking for ways to move forward and take the next steps, that was his advice – which I obviously followed carefully!”

Mekies’ first race with the team – still Minardi back then – was in Australia in 2002, where Mark Webber finished fifth. Caught up in the excitement, Webber and team owner Paul Stoddart sneaked onto the podium to acknowledge the home crowd after the top three had departed, incurring a fine from the FIA. Mekies was Webber’s engine engineer.

A graduate of Loughborough University, Mekies had started his F1 career at Arrows – as an employee of engine supplier Asiatech – just a year earlier. After moving to Faenza, he rose to the position of chief race engineer – that appointment coming shortly after Minardi was bought by Red Bull and renamed Scuderia Toro Rosso, with Tost taking the helm.

After starting in F1 at Arrows, Mekies rose through the ranks at Minardi, pictured here in 2004 with Zsolt Baumgartner

Photo by: Andre Vor / Sutton Images

It was the Austrian, a devotee of discipline and order, who transformed (albeit not without the help of the energy drink company’s copious funding) the small Italian outfit from a perennial straggler into a competitive midfield force.

“Franz came with an incredible set of qualities,” says Laurent of his former boss, whose subordinates grew ever accustomed to him coming in to work earliest of all.

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“He is like that. He really was the first to arrive at the factory – and that is just one of the incredible things that characterises his level of discipline. And he’s managed to turn the team into a very disciplined machine.

"For years and years we had a daily unofficial meeting, he and I, at an undisclosed early hour in the morning, where we would both be there talking" Laurent Mekies on Franz Tost

“You don’t realise it but, whether you like it or not, you become like him. Year after year you really become like him – with that kind of obsession with detail. We have all learned over the years how important that is for F1 teams. And it’s one of the great things he brought to the table.

“For years and years we had a daily unofficial meeting, he and I, at an undisclosed early hour in the morning, where we would both be there talking. Because, you know, it was a quiet time where you could reflect: you’re fresh in the morning, emotions are low – and you exchange opinions and try to find the way forward, whether it’s a short-term matter or a long-term matter.

“And on most days it would be the best part of the day.”

Mekies and Franz Tost created a strong bond in charge of the Toro Rosso squad

Photo by: Emily Davenport / Motorsport Images

State of independence

Mekies was with the team when it was forced to go through another transition, one which attacked its very ethos as Red Bull’s satellite organisation. After Sebastian Vettel’s win at Monza in 2008 the use of customer cars – in those days Toro Rosso ran Red Bull-designed chassis adapted to accommodate Ferrari engines – was banned. This would entail a huge expansion in design and manufacturing capacity.

“The rules were completely different to today,” Laurent recalls. “So you could effectively take whatever you wanted from another team.

“It was a true customer car. Nothing like today. So we ran that model for a couple of years, until 2008 with Sebastian’s famous win. And then it stopped – because some people [rival teams, of which Williams was the most vocal] got quite upset. And we went in the opposite direction.

“And at that stage, you really look at yourself and say, ‘OK, but... how? How are we going to make a chassis for next year? Shit, we haven’t done it for two or three years.’ But soon it felt like a huge opportunity to grow the company. Great! We’re going to be an independent team.

“So everybody pushed very hard. And we got on the grid.”

The biggest difficulty was having to do everything simultaneously. Not just designing and assembling the car using existing facilities from the Minardi days, but also growing the team, hiring personnel, and building a new factory.

Mekies with Toro Rosso technical director Giorgio Ascanelli, who spent time working in container cabins as the team expanded its factory

Photo by: Andre Vor / Sutton Images

“The design office was in containers in the car park,” laughs Mekies. “No, it’s not a joke. When we had to become a constructor again, it was like, ‘OK, where are we going to put the new guys now?’ And we had a car park...

“So you rent containers, like you see on a building site, and you put them together. Our technical director was sitting in one of those containers. Imagine, Giorgio Ascanelli’s office was there – with the other guys he worked with. So it was an interesting time! But it’s also the kind of moment that creates the spirit of the team.

“You know, people think, ‘OK, you were bought by Red Bull’ – so you can change things from one day to another. But obviously, you can’t. As much as it was a huge change, you had to go through a process: you needed to structure your existing departments, create some others. It all takes time.

"Franz knew very well that you need your people to perform. And he values skill, and if he sees skill, he will make sure that person is OK, whatever happens" Laurent Mekies

“It’s also one of Franz’s great achievements, if you look at the span of 15 years, he’s kept the team growing. Steady steps, all these years.

“And as we often say, between the time I left 10 years ago and now, the team has doubled in size. To be fair, probably most teams have doubled in size because that’s what the sport has become. But he certainly didn’t let it fall behind.

“Franz knew very well that you need your people to perform. And he values skill, and if he sees skill, he will make sure that person is OK, whatever happens.”

Mekies took new mentorship from FIA F1 race director Charlie Whiting

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

 A new figurehead

It was in 2014 that Mekies took Tost’s advice to try something new, though his destination wasn’t another F1 team. Instead, he went to the FIA as head of safety and race director Charlie Whiting’s deputy, giving him another respected F1 figure from whom to learn.

“The thing about Charlie is that he liked the people around him,” Mekies says when asked what made Whiting so venerated. “And because of that, he was able to find a compromise or a solution to any situation – because he was genuinely trying to make things work.

“He treated everybody with that kind of respect. What you don’t really see when you’re working with the team is the FIA turning up at the track – and then having to deal with the five, six, seven hundred officials that run the grand prix, the locals. It’s a very different game to going from race to race with your own team. Every race he had to interact with these guys, get the message across, interface with them. And how do you maintain a standard across the whole calendar? And he was able to do that, again, I think for the same reason: he really cared about these people. And they gave him that respect and more. And I think that was probably, among many other qualities, the biggest thing.”

As a member of an F1 team Mekies had already seen Whiting at work but observing from up close, Laurent admits, was still a major revelation.

“I remember one of the first things I asked him [after joining the FIA],” he smiles. “Charlie was known for answering your emails almost immediately. You could write about any subject – and, boom, the answer was there. If the answer didn’t come, it meant there was a serious problem! When I first started working with him, I said, ‘OK, Charlie, now I want to understand: what system do you use? You must have some sort of sharp, clever organiser, right? I mean, either software or system?’ And he said, ‘No, nothing’. And I went, ‘What do you mean, no? How do you do it then?’ And he said, ‘Well, when I get the email, I reply.’

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“There are many, many hard-working people in this paddock. And he took it to the next level. The number of hours he put in – it was completely off the scale. The level of commitment that he had was just beyond anybody’s imagination. The race would be over and he’d jump on a plane to go and homologate a track 5000 kilometres away. And he’d probably do one or two before the next race came around and it all started again.”

Mekies became Mattia Binotto's right-hand man in charge at Ferrari

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Lessons from Ferrari

Mekies joined Ferrari in 2018, ultimately becoming the deputy team principal. Though the Faenza facility Mekies returned to last year has continued to grow in the decade he’s been away, and the number of staff involved is many times greater, he will have to manage a significant number of people he had worked alongside during his previous stint.

The task he now faces is similar to that of his former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto, who also progressed from being a rank-and-file engineer to running a team. And it will require him to apply all the lessons he’s learned over the past 20 years.

“To have the kind of character that takes you through all these jobs to the top in an environment like this,” Mekies says of Binotto, “is something that tells you everything about the guy.

"The change from one to the other is a very good demonstration that it’s the leadership that matters, not the style" Laurent Mekies on Ferrari's change of management

“Mattia is someone with a very strong vision of what he needs to do. He knows exactly where he wants to go. And he believes it’s the right way.

“And he’s able to convince everyone to follow him. He did that when he was head of the engine department, then when he was technical director, and when he was team principal.”

Mekies also spent a year working with Frederic Vasseur, a very different personality to the outwardly diffident Binotto.

A fresh style of leadership arrived at Ferrari under Frederic Vasseur

Photo by: Mark Sutton

“The change from one to the other is a very good demonstration that it’s the leadership that matters, not the style,” says Laurent. “And you can have two exceptional leaders like Mattia and Fred, because they have completely opposite styles. And what matters is that they have what it takes for people to follow them.

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“Certainly what drives us, what unites us all, is that we want to put people at the heart of these projects. We feel that by putting people at the heart of it, by putting them in a position where they can outperform the other guys, where they can express themselves better than they’ve ever done in their careers – and that’s the way we’re going to build this project here.”

Replacing someone who had been at the helm for as long as Franz Tost won’t be easy. Mekies is certainly a different personality and his methods are bound to differ. But even if he won’t be the one turning on the lights at Faenza each morning, he’s experienced enough to know what it takes to run an organisation as large as a Formula 1 team.

“We learn massively from the people we’ve met over the years,” he says. “Consciously or unconsciously, what makes us addicted to this sport is the competition, of course, but also the incredible quality of the people you meet over the years. And I’ve been very lucky to work with these guys with such outstanding qualities.

“Of course you take things from them. And what you take from each of these guys along the way, to deal with your own development, is what makes you who you are.

“So it’s never something that you think about consciously, but I would say that you will still look at the way people deal with tricky or difficult situations and try to learn from how they did it.”

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Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images