SINGAPORE – Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies is sticking to his guns in refusing to take credit for the team’s remarkable improvement in performance under his leadership, something Max Verstappen considers to be “too kind” of him.
Since Mekies replaced Christian Horner in July, Red Bull’s form has undergone a dramatic change. Verstappen achieved a podium finish at the Dutch Grand Prix after the summer break, followed by consecutive victories in Monza and Baku, before securing second position in Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix.
After Verstappen’s victory in Monza in September, Mekies deflected questions about his impact since taking office. Three races later, his opinion hasn’t changed.
“It’s still zero, guys. It’s still zero,” he told reporters on Sunday night when asked if he would reconsider how much credit he can receive now. “And I say that with the same seriousness that I told you after Monza.
Laurent Mekies, Head of Red Bull
The improvement in performance is basically due to everyone’s work trying to analyze the car’s limitations, race after race. What prevents us from exploiting the car’s potential? How can we add performance to the car? Where do we need to add performance so that it translates into lap time?
That work, again, with extremely strong and clear contributions from Max, is bearing fruit, which is good news. Because, as a group, it only confirms that we have the best people we could dream of. And we will keep working, we will not stop there.
We’ll take it race by race and try to see if there’s more to come.
The change has led McLaren to qualify Verstappen as a real threat to Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in the fight for the drivers’ title: the current champion is 63 points behind the leader with six races to go.
Verstappen has already praised Mekies for the work he has done since he was promoted from his former position as head of Red Bull’s junior team, Racing Bulls.
Mekies comes from an engineering background, and Verstappen said after the Italian Grand Prix that he had injected a more sensible approach to how they set up the car.
“I think Laurent is probably being too nice in that respect,” Verstappen said on Sunday night when he was told about Mekies’ comments.
“But at the end of the day, what’s very good is that we approached it as a proper team effort. We always try to analyze the details. We try to understand what our weaknesses were. And for some races now, it has definitely improved a lot.
Maybe it wasn’t as good as the previous race weekend, but sometimes you come out of a race a little lost, not really understanding why or how. I think we now understand why or how we can be better.
And, yes, by asking the right questions, including Laurent’s participation in that, it’s simply working well.
