Following a disappointing first half of the 2025 season for Red Bull Racing, the team made a shocking call to replace the Team Principal, Christian Horner, who had served the team for 20 years. A call that opened Red Bull to a new era: The era of Laurent Mekies.
Just before the weekend at Spa, Mekies was called up to take charge of Red Bull. An insurmountable task, or so it seems. Within only a few races, Red Bull has found some serious pace and has one sprint win and two Grand Prix victories to show for it in just four races’ time. But just how did Mekies turn Red Bull in the right direction in such a short timespan?
The Red Bull Racing of seasons past returns to the present
Following a horrid weekend for Red Bull at the Hungaroring, the Austrian-based team started reflecting on how they prepare for a weekend. Where they would normally run countless virtual simulations to predict the best setup, they had to change something to extract the full potential from the RB21 at any given trick.
It seems that Laurent Mekies isn’t afraid to change up rhythms, as Red Bull has impressed everyone around the world with their latest performance. Long-time Red Bull veteran Helmut Marko has openly praised the new team principal of Red Bull in an interview with Motorsport.com after Monza:
“Laurent is an excellent engineer, so now the idea is more to take whatever the simulation shows us, but mix that with the experience that Max has and with the experience that our racing engineers have. That’s how we want to make a car that is more predictable and drivable.”
‘Asking the Right Questions’ – Max Verstappen Credits Laurent Mekies for Red Bull’s 2025 F1 Recovery
With this sudden shift in both team atmosphere and results, we could very well see Red Bull return to their winning ways of the past seasons in an epic way. The team seems to work better together, and the drivability seems to have become infinitely better if we have to believe Max Verstappen‘s assessments of the RB21.
The unique way Laurent Mekies operates might be just the thing Red Bull needs
With multiple races of success, Max Verstappen has commented on the way that Mekies differs from Horner. Setting up the RB21 was a real challenge when you don’t know for sure what needs to happen. Mekies’ way of operating has streamlined this process and opened up some more pace, according to Verstappen:
We were not fully understanding what to do. With Laurent having an engineering background, he’s asking the right questions to the engineers – common-sense questions – so I think that works really well.”
A long and storied journey 📖
Laurent Mekies becomes Red Bull CEO with a wealth of motorsport experience behind him 👨💻#F1 @redbullracing pic.twitter.com/Ui1HbWFklz
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 9, 2025
More power to the engineers and making adjustments based on the driver’s advice rather than following the sim data is a brilliant way to operate when you have a talented team like Red Bull. With even Tsunoda getting better results as of late, the Red Bull car of 2025 might be ‘fixed’ and better to drive for all drivers. The question now is, can they keep it up for the remainder of the season?
