Red Bull without Christian Horner: What Laurent Mekies will bring as new team boss

Red Bull’s lead driver Max Verstappen has struggled to compete with the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris on a consistent basis this year, but the circuits where he has been able to are fast and flowing – exactly like Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps.

Verstappen, after all, was on pole at high-speed Silverstone three weeks ago, only for his race to come unstuck in the wet as a consequence of the low-downforce set-up Red Bull chose.

Spa is famous for its long, demanding, fast corners, just like Suzuka, where Verstappen won from pole. It would be no surprise to see him repeat that feat this weekend.

While that would be a nice fillip for the new Mekies-led Red Bull, it would not be an indication that their problems were behind them.

The team’s struggles this year were central in the mix of issues that led to Horner’s departure. The shareholders – tired, too, of Horner’s demands to be in total control of everything while the team appeared to be fracturing around him – felt something needed to be done.

But this is still the core of the team that two years ago produced the most dominant season in F1 history, and for which last year Verstappen won seven of the first 10 races to lay the foundations for his fourth world title.

So it was no surprise to hear Mekies pledging, in a video distributed by Red Bull, to get the best out of what he describes as “this incredible team”.

As someone who has been in F1 for more than 20 years, and who has worked at governing body the FIA and Ferrari in addition to two stints at Red Bull’s junior team, Mekies already knows well several key people at Red Bull, such as technical director Pierre Wache and head of engineering Paul Monaghan.