When Laurent Mekies officially took over at Red Bull Racing after the British Grand Prix, most fans assumed that this was the result of months of long-term planning, strategic meetings and confidential discussions in smoke-free boardrooms. As it turns out, however, it was more like a badly produced sitcom, in which the lead actor is written out mid-season because the writers have lost interest. Mekies certainly wasn’t expecting it, he was the one who got the starring role.
The Frenchman opened up about the now-famous phone call from Helmut Marko and Oliver Mintzlaff that effectively sent Christian Horner packing. According to Mekies, the moment wasn’t dramatic or ceremonious. There were no violins. No cinematic slow-motion. Just terrible audio quality and a lot of confusion.
A Monday Morning Surprise: “It was like being in a bad movie.”
The call came the Monday after Silverstone, a weekend on which Max Verstappen had started on pole, but ended up drenched in misery. Red Bull had set up the RB21 for a dry race, only for Britain to do what it does best and let the heavens open without warning. The car was under-winged and the rain was relentless. Red Bull looked as though they had confused their weather forecast with an optimistic horoscope.
Naturally, the headlines exploded. Words such as ‘blunder’ and ‘miscalculation’ appeared everywhere, alongside photographs of Verstappen looking like a man wondering why he had bothered getting out of bed that day.
“I went to Silverstone for the race weekend and didn’t expect anything to happen,” Mekies explained on the Talking Bull podcast.
“On Monday, I was still in London for some other business. That’s when I got the call from Oliver and Helmut.”
Then came the punchline…
“You might not believe me, but the connection was terrible,” he recalls.
Not ‘slightly crackly’ terrible. It was more like trying to speak to someone through a walkie-talkie that had been dropped into a washing machine.
“I had a really hard time understanding what they were saying. I thought, ‘What are you talking about? Can’t you just call me back on WhatsApp?’”
In fact, WhatsApp should probably sponsor Red Bull at this point, given how many major F1 decisions seem to be made through it.
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Horner out, Mekies in, once he finally understood the message
Behind the scenes, Mintzlaff, Marko and shareholder Chalerm Yoovidhya had already made up their minds. The trio met on Monday, reviewed the situation, and decided that Christian Horner’s time at the helm was over. The formal dismissal came on 8 July.
‘They called me again, and only then did I understand what they meant,” says Mekies. “I asked, ‘Can I think about it for a few hours?’”
This was a perfectly understandable request, after all, being asked to lead Red Bull Racing is the sort of thing you want to check isn’t a prank or a misunderstanding.
However, Mekies quickly realised what a privilege it was. He phoned his wife to discuss it, hoping for a philosophical debate about the pros and cons.
“She let me talk for a few minutes and then said, ‘Do we actually have a choice?’” he laughs. And so, the decision was made.
By the time the Belgian Grand Prix came around, Mekies was already celebrating Verstappen’s sprint victory as Red Bull’s new team boss — the F1 equivalent of being thrown in at the deep end and discovering that you can swim the butterfly stroke.
Four months in: Learning the Red Bull Philosophy
Mekies has now had several months to absorb the Red Bull mentality, which he describes with great admiration, albeit acknowledging that the intensity can be mildly terrifying.
He praises the team’s refusal to give up, their dedication to Verstappen and their habit of relentlessly pushing performance limits.
‘That’s deeply ingrained in this team and keeps everyone close together,” he says. “There’s a reason no other team has won more in the past twenty years. They always push”
Always. One imagines the factory coffee machine has a setting called ‘Marko Mode’.
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A Team That Refused to Abandon the Season
Despite a shaky start to the season, Mekies insists that the tough period only strengthened the team’s unity.
“No one ever gave up on the season,” he says. “They weren’t satisfied with the car’s performance or the project’s limitations.”
“Step by step, by taking more and more risks, they began to unlock performance,” he explains. “That gives you more confidence, making even more possible. Thanks to their incredible talent, we managed to get the car back up to scratch in a short time.”
Ferrari engineers now pin the blame on…
Balancing 2025 Recovery and the 2026 Revolution
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Red Bull’s resurgence is that half the team is already immersed in the 2026 regulations. In most places, working on two monumental projects at once would be considered excessive. At Red Bull? It’s just Tuesday.
“It doesn’t feel right to just say, ‘Let’s turn the page,'” says Mekies.
“Most of the team is split between the two projects. I think they’re just doubling the work and the intensity.”
He laughs, not because it’s funny, but because it’s the kind of laugh one has when describing an experience that is both impressive and slightly alarming.
‘That’s one of the magical aspects of this place.”
MORE F1 NEWS – Ferrari Rejects Hamilton’s Demands
Ferrari’s refusal to change sparks Hamilton row – Lewis Hamilton finds himself in good company having been lambasted by Ferrari group chairman, John Elkann. When Fernando Alonso was driving for the team in 2013, he was asked what he would like after as a birthday present after finishing a lowly fifth in Singapore. The Spaniard quipped: “someone else’s car.”
This sparked a furore in Maranello with the PR department releasing an unusual statement about a conversation between the then chairman, Luca de Montezemolo and his Spanish driver. “All the great champions who have driven for Ferrari have always been asked to put the interests of the team above their own,” it opened.
According to the statement, Di Montezemolo also insisted that “this is the moment to stay calm, avoid polemics and show humility and determination in making one’s own contribution, standing alongside the team and its people both at the track and outside it”.
Alonso’s ear “tweaked”
It also remarkably revealed that Di Montezemolo had said in the team meeting on Monday that, “there is a need to close ranks, without giving in to rash outbursts that, while understandable in the immediate aftermath of a bad result, are no use to anyone”.
It was also reported that there Ferrari boss had called Alonso to wish him a happy birthday, but during that call Montezemolo had “tweaked his ear” for his latest comments. A year later and after another Ferrari failure as the 2014 new V6 turbo hybrid era was ushered in, Fernando left the Scuderia reportedly saying he believed they could not win another championship. He blamed the dysfunctional nature of how the team operated for this damning conclusion.
Lewis Hamilton along with team mate Charles Leclerc this week also received an “ear tweak” from the current Ferrari chairman. John Elkann praised the engineers and the mechanics of the Scuderia for doing an excellent job.However, he lambasted his drivers stating, “We have drivers who need to focus on driving, talk less, and we have important races ahead of us, and it is not impossible to finish second.”
In his post race interview in Brazil, Lewis described his first season at Ferrari as a “nightmare” yet it was not this which drew the ire of the Ferrari boss. Prior to the summer break, Hamilton revealed he had “called” a number of meetings with department heads in Maranello and that, “I’ve sent documents. I’ve done [that] through the year.” READ MORE ON THIS STORY
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It would be good to believe SOMEONE feels the ‘never give up’ attitude at Red Bull Racing’s F1 empire has been as a result of Christian Horner’s mantra over it’s first two decades … I DON’T hear it being said though. Shame on you, Red Bull hierarchy!