Max Verstappen and Helmut Marko attribute Red Bull’s surprising dominant victory at the Italian Grand Prix to a change in the car’s setup approach under the direction of new boss Laurent Mekies. Verstappen achieved pole position and then won at Monza with ease, surpassing the usually untouchable McLarens by almost 20 seconds, the largest margin of victory a driver has had this season. It was Red Bull’s first victory in a Grand Prix that did not occur under the leadership of Christian Horner, who was replaced as team principal by former engineer Mekies at the end of July. The result, and Verstappen’s podium finish at the Dutch Grand Prix a week earlier, represented a significant shift in form compared to before the summer break. Verstappen has been very vocal in the last 18 months about Red Bull’s volatile car. The four-time world champion said that the team is approaching each weekend with a clearer focus in terms of how to extract maximum performance.
Verstappen added that Mekies, with his engineering experience, is asking the right questions to the engineers, common sense questions, and that is working very well. In addition, they are building on the things they have tested, which gives them an idea of the direction to follow. The Dutch driver felt that they already took a step in Zandvoort that seemed to work quite well, and here another step that felt even better. Formula 1 cars rarely change fundamentally overnight, deadlines are significant and improvements are always in the works for a while, so any new part arriving on the Red Bull car now would have been part of a process initiated under Horner’s supervision.So far we’ve had many races where we’ve been shooting a bit left and right with the car setup. Quite extreme changes, which shows that we didn’t have control. We didn’t fully understand what to do.
Max Verstappen
Verstappen’s victory was the third of the season and the first since the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in May. Although he was considered a title contender at the beginning of the year, he has now moved away from the fight for the championship. He is currently in third place, 96 points behind the championship leader, Oscar Piastri.The difference is that the preparation for a weekend is different now. Laurent is an excellent engineer, so now the idea is to take what the simulation shows us, but mix it with the experience that Max has and with the experience that our race engineers have. That’s how we want to make a car that is more predictable and manageable. This is the product of that. Basically, it’s the same product we had before, only some improvements came and they are working. But 20 seconds over McLaren, I wouldn’t have predicted that.
Helmut Marko
