Laurent Mekies exclusive: "My job is to protect Red Bull's DNA, not to change it"

Seven months ago, Christian Horner's sacking the day after the British Grand Prix came as a shock to many, and not in the least to his successor Laurent Mekies. The 48-year-old Frenchman was happily ticking along at the helm of sister team Racing Bulls, forming a strong partnership with CEO Peter Bayer.

But when the call came in from Red Bull Austria to head up one of the two most successful F1 teams over the past two decades, it was simply an offer he could not refuse.

Taking charge mid-season of a 2000-strong team, across chassis and power unit divisions, is no small feat at the best of times. But continuing the huge legacy left by Horner is another matter, and Mekies took on the challenge with patience and humility.

“In those first few days I kept telling myself: take your time before forming an opinion," Mekies tells Autosport at Bahrain's pre-season test. "Not just about people, but about the way things are done here. I knew that after a few months the picture would become clearer and that’s exactly what happened.

“Every day you feel a little more in control, simply because you know people better and you understand the dynamics a bit more. As I said, I made a point of understanding the Red Bull reality without filtering it through my past experiences, trying to open my perspective as much as possible.

"The team has been fantastic. They had all gone through an epochal change, yet I was welcomed in an incredible way. After a few months, I realised that my job is certainly not to change the foundations of the team, but to protect its competitive DNA: here, everything is done to make the car faster. The rest matters little.”

Mekies arrived at Red Bull seven months ago with the team struggling to correlate developments and juggle its 2026 preparations

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Speaking of past experience, Mekies can lean on an impressive CV including stints at Minardi, Toto Rosso, the FIA and Ferrari before returning to Faenza. And what he encountered in Milton Keynes was a team that from the outside looked in the hurt locker, struggling to get on top of its performance woes while speculation was rife about its north star Max Verstappen and his future with the squad.

With the 2026 regulation changes looming large, including what Mekies previously called an "insane" challenge of Red Bull producing its own power units, there must have been some temptation to park 2025 and focus on the new era.

"It would have been easy to say: let’s focus on 2026," Mekies nodded. "All the conditions were there to turn the page and start again from a blank sheet. New regulations, the first in‑house engine, a new team principal and other changes at the top.

Verstappen and other key figures have made a point of praising his new boss' refreshing perspective on the stuttering juggernaut

“Instead, the exact opposite happened. No one, absolutely no one, wanted to give up. It’s the racing spirit of this group. Everyone gave their all, and from Monza onwards a different championship began. That’s why I say, going back to the initial question, that my role is to protect these talents and give them the best possible working environment.”

Alongside his understated presence, Red Bull's late 2025 turnaround revealed another key difference Mekies was bringing to the role compared to his predecessor, with his engineering-first background encouraging the team to question assumed knowledge and lean further into Verstappen's feedback rather than predominantly relying on the numbers.

Mekies himself has always shrugged off his input to Verstappen's late championship rally, which came within two points of one of the series' greatest ever comebacks. But Verstappen and other key figures have made a point of praising his new boss' refreshing perspective on the stuttering juggernaut, which still employs a lot of the same brilliant minds who helped made it a dominant force to begin with, even if it had lost outstanding talents like Adrian Newey and Rob Marshall.

Verstappen's feedback and guidance has been hugely valued by Mekies in its 2025 turnaround

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

"Max's role goes far beyond driving"

The budding partnership between star driver and team boss has certainly got off to a symbiotic start, even if 2026 is set to throw fresh challenges Red Bull's way.

“[It's been] fantastic," Mekies beamed. "Max embodies motorsport in every sense, there isn’t a single detail he overlooks. What he does behind the wheel is clear to everyone, but from the inside you can appreciate his extraordinary technical sensitivity and his complete understanding of this sport, which I imagine comes from having been immersed in it his entire life.

"He has a limitless vision; his role goes far beyond driving. He’s a true driving force for everyone working on the project and plays a crucial part in the whole system. He’s involved in every aspect, when we take risks, when we face setbacks, in every decision. In a regulatory shift as radical as this one, he’s an enormous added value."

Alongside Verstappen, 2025 standout rookie Isack Hadjar is the next man up in Red Bull's cursed second seat, although the all-new cars are giving Mekies and Red Bull and opportunity to banish that curse once and for all. That will largely depend on the 21-year-old himself and, having work with him at Racing Bulls, Mekies is pleased with what he is seeing so far.

“So far he has done everything the right way, showing the correct approach in terms of commitment and personality," Mekies said about his fellow Frenchman. "He immediately moved to England, he’s at the Milton Keynes headquarters every two days, and he’s living in close contact with the team. Between the two Sakhir tests he went back to the simulator, he’s leaving nothing behind."

Red Bull's new engines, produced at its campus under the Red Bull Ford Powertrains banner, have meanwhile surprised friend and foe by proving both reliable and competitive in pre-season testing, which is an early shot in the arm after fears 2026 would be a transitional year for the organisation.

Aiming to break the curse of the Red Bull second seat is another target for this year following Hadjar's promotion

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images

Had Horner and Red Bull been too pessimistic about RBPT's outlook? “I don’t think the expectations were wrong," Mekies replied. "Let’s start from a crucial point: in the facility where our power unit was designed and built, a little more than three years ago there was nothing but a field. Everything started from scratch, identifying and hiring no fewer than 700 people, and the entire group had to bond and learn to work together.

"When at 9am on the first day of testing in Barcelona the car rolled out of the garage, I think it was a historic moment. This group deserves full credit for what is truly an extraordinary achievement. But a second later we were already focused on the feedback and on the road ahead, which is still enormous.

"We’re all aware that, even with an extraordinary starting point, we’re up against giants of motorsport with immense experience. We’ve climbed the first mountain, but there’s another one ahead. We’re here to fight, at the moment a bit behind the other three top teams, but ready to give everything to catch up."

"We’re on the eve of one of the most intense development cycles ever, and that’s what fascinates me the most" Laurent Mekies

Red Bull looks set to enter the 2026 era in the frontrunning group along with F1's three other top teams, although it is expecting to be behind Mercedes and Ferrari, and in a similar ballpark as McLaren. And while making predictions is nearly impossible given the massive rate of development teams are going to find, the engineer in Mekies is excited about the potential of the new regulations and of a team with Red Bull's expertise and pedigree.

“As a motorsport enthusiast, I can’t wait to see the technical evolution we’ll witness on track, both on the power unit side and on the chassis side," he previewed the campaign ahead. "We’re on the eve of one of the most intense development cycles ever, and that’s what fascinates me the most.

"At the moment we’ve also seen some critical issues, especially regarding power unit recharging, but history teaches us that Formula 1 teams have an incredible ability to tackle and solve problems and that’s one of the most fascinating aspects of this sport. I believe the evolution from the first to the last race of the season will be three or four times greater than what we saw last year."