Verstappen praises Red Bull after Monza: Mekies key to victory

Verstappen and Red Bull: Victory at Monza Reveals a Strategic Shift

Max Verstappen’s recent dominant victory at the Italian Grand Prix has generated a great stir in the Formula 1 world. Both Verstappen and Helmut Marko, a key figure at Red Bull, have attributed this success to a change in the team’s approach to car setup, now under the direction of Laurent Mekies. Verstappen, who secured pole position, led the race in Monza with authority, surpassing the McLarens, considered until now unreachable, by almost 20 seconds. This difference represents the widest margin of victory of the season. This triumph marked Red Bull’s first victory without Christian Horner at the helm, who was replaced by Mekies at the end of July. The result, along with Verstappen’s podium finish at the Dutch Grand Prix a week earlier, indicates a notable improvement in the team’s performance after the summer break. Verstappen has expressed his opinion on the Red Bull car, which was dominant in the 2022 and 2023 seasons, and has highlighted that the team now approaches each weekend with greater clarity in the pursuit of extracting maximum performance.

So far, we’ve had many races where we’ve been testing different setups on the car. Quite extreme changes, which shows that we didn’t have full control. We didn’t fully understand what to do.

Max Verstappen

According to Verstappen, the arrival of Mekies, with his engineering experience, has allowed the team to ask more precise questions and apply a more sensible approach. This, added to the accumulated experience, has provided the team with a clear direction. Changes to Formula 1 cars are rarely immediate. Updates are usually the result of a process that begins in advance. Therefore, the new Red Bull parts in Monza could have been part of a process initiated under Horner’s direction.

Helmut Marko, Red Bull advisor, has acknowledged that there have been no significant changes in the update plan or in the fundamentals of the car. However, he has reiterated the importance of the improvement in the way the team extracts performance from the car.

The difference is that the preparation for a weekend is different now. Laurent is an excellent engineer, so the idea is to take what the simulation shows us and mix it with Max’s experience and our race engineers. That’s how we want to make a more predictable and manageable car.

Helmut Marko

Verstappen’s victory at Monza is the third of the season, the first since the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in May. Despite having been considered a possible title contender at the beginning of the year, he is now in a less favorable position in the standings. Currently, he occupies third place, 96 points behind the championship leader, Oscar Piastri.