Laurent Mekies has grasped the poisoned chalice. In replacing Christian Horner, whose tenure in charge of Red Bull spanned some two decades, the Frenchman is now in the hot seat as the F1 world watches to see how he can turn around the fortunes of the Milton Keynes based team.
With the staff at the team’s Northamptonshire base stunned by the sudden dismissal of their long time leader, Mekies first day in the job of leading Red Bull Racing was reported to be a muted affair. The ex-Ferrari engineer has joined the racing outfit at an award time mid-season, with the new power unit design locked in for next year and the chassis designed by Pierre Wache and his team well on the way to completion.
The outcome of these projects will have little of Mekies fingerprint on them, yet he has now targeted a current failing in the operations as his first objective. The timing of Horner’s removal will help the new Red Bull team boss given F1 has a three week break after the British Grand Prix, before the double header rounds in Spa-Francorchamps and Budapest.
Mekies first changes revealed
Then comes the four week F1 summer break where the teams are duty bund to shut down operations for two complete weeks in August. All this gives the French team principal time to adjust with minimum exposure to the media.
Mekies has already identified his first bunch of low hanging fruit in that Red Bull this season have arrived at a race weekend in bad shape on Fridays. In Silverstone, Max Verstappen was only P10 in the first practice session and come the end of FP2, the world champion remained half a second off the pace.
As is often the case, on Friday night back in Milton Keynes, the simulator then burns the mid night oil as the engineers and test drivers pour over the data to find a solution that will better balance the car come Saturday morning. Again as the race weekend of the British GP showed, in final practice Verstappen was less than a tenth off the surprise pace setter, Charles Leclerc. And come qualifying with a radical low downforce setup Max went on to claim pole position ahead of his McLaren rivals.
While Red Bull have a ‘dawn of time’ old school wind tunnel, but they are building one which is state of the art but will only be ready in 2027. In the meantime Mekies is changing Red Bull’s pre-race weekend processes to ensure the team arrive at a race weekend with the RB21 in a better operating window.
Horner ‘was not the problem’
Laurent’s first day in charge at Red Bull was not an easy affair. The team had planned a filming day at Silverstone but reports emerged of the engineers being “muted” as an air of “sadness” enveloped the session rather than excitement of a bright new future.
The new Red Bull boss will need to build bridges quickly with his departmental heads, yet there may be a tough decision ahead regarding the team’s technical director Pierre Wache. He stepped into Adrian Newey’s shoes back in 2018 as the Red Bull technical director, while the guru designer decided to work part time and operate on an ‘as and when’ ad hoc consultant to the design function.
Despite Christian Horner’s efforts to credit the design team as much as Newey, for the all conquering and record smashing RB19, there remains a suspicion that Red Bull’s current woes are rooted in Pierre Wache’s department. Lead German F1 commentator, Ralf Schumacher, believes the sacking of Horner will achieve little without Mekies addressing fundamental problems in the design team.
Speaking to Sky F1 in Germany, the ex-F1 racer claimed: “The change of team principal will initially not change anything in the technical team. Designer Pierre Wache will continue to build the car next year. It almost looks as if he won’t be able to close this gap, replace Adrian Newey in any way and build a winning car.”
Marko’s invisible hand in Horner’s sacking
The numbers tell the tale
Since the departure of Adrian Newey was announced in May 2024, Red Bull have won just seven of the 31 Grand Prix on offer. Whilst for many this direct correlation is damming in its simplicity, the root cause of Red Bull’s demise pre-dates the announcement of Newey’s departure.
“We’ve traced the development history back and it turned out that the first mistake we made was with a floor upgrade in 2023 in Barcelona,” Christian Horner told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport in September 2024. “That was also the grand prix from which Checo (Perez) started having problems with the car. We just didn’t take it so seriously because Max (Verstappen) kept winning,” he added.
Then as the excellent start to the 2024 season unravelled, Dr. Helmut Marko also revealed, “We took a really wrong turn this year in Imola.” This affected the rest of the in season development the team were able to deliver last year. While the root of Red Bull’s current plight is claimed to rest back in 2023, when Newey was committed to the team, Mekies must root out the fundamental problem which may well rest with the team’s technical director.
Ex-F1 racer calls for Red Bull TD to be sacked
The sacking of Horner has left Wache vulnerable, with his biggest supporter gone all eyes will be on his design efforts for 2026. The ex-team boss even backed Wache and his team when Newey was receiving all the plaudits for the record breaking RB19, something which may have been the root cause of Newey’s final discontent.
Speaking on Sky Germany’s Backstage Boxengasse, Schumacher lays the full blame for Red Bull’s struggles at the feet of its technical director. “Red Bull are struggling at the moment and will continue to struggle for the foreseeable future… What gives me hope as a driver that Red Bull will build the absolute winning car again next year?
“The multiple updates didn’t work out so well. So, why should I now assume that Pierre Wache will suddenly build the miracle car with the new regulations when he doesn’t even understand the old car properly?”
There are no current obvious replacements within the Red Bull team for Wache as technical director, and so the first test of Mekies capabilities may well be demonstrating he can manage the recruitment of a big hitting engineer from another team.
Max finalising details with Mercedes, says Verstappen camp
Almost a week on from the sacking of Christian Horner, no explanation has emerged as to why the Red Bull boss was dismissed and in particular why now? In terms of changing the future direction of the Formula One team, there was no real urgency given they are well underway with their new powertrains division and designs for the radical new 2026 cars.
Of course, the night of the long knives had internal political motivations for the Austrian directors of the energy drinks empire, yet the fallout from their decisive action is yet to fully unravel and may include a forced sale of their Racing Bulls outfit.
On the face of it, the decision appeared to be a reaction to the persistent reports that Max Verstappen was leaving for Mercedes. But whilst those in Max’s corner were anti-Horner, there’s little evidence to suggests the world champion himself had any beef with the former Red Bull boss…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
