Life after Horner – what Mekies will bring to Red Bull

At least for the time being with his new team, Laurent Mekies intends to lead Red Bull as a soft-touch boss.

After Christian Horner was fired by the shareholders three days after the British Grand Prix, the 48-year-old Frenchman assumed the position of team principal and chief executive officer of Red Bull Racing.

In the end, Mekies’ job is to improve a team’s performance after an 18-month competitive slump.

Max Verstappen, the lead driver for Red Bull, has struggled to compete with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris’ McLarens consistently this year, but the circuits where he has been able to do so are fast and flowing, much like Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.

After all, Verstappen was on pole at Silverstone three weeks prior to the start of his race because Red Bull chose a low-downforce setup.

Similar to Suzuka, where Verstappen won from pole, Spa is known for its long, demanding, fast corners. He’d likely do that feat again this weekend, so it wouldn’t surprise.

Although that would give the new Mekies-led Red Bull a nice boost, it wouldn’t suggest that their issues were unresolved.

The team’s struggles this year played a significant role in the issues that caused Horner’s departure. The shareholders felt something had to be done, despite Horner’s demands that they have complete control over everything while the team appeared to be fracturing around him.

Verstappen won seven of the first ten races last year to lay the groundwork for his fourth world title, but this is still the team’s core, which produced the most dominant season in F1 history two years ago.

So it shouldn’t surprise me to hear Mekies pledge to make the most of what he describes as “this incredible team” in a Red Bull video.

Mekies has spent the last two weeks getting to know Red Bull’s Milton Keynes staff. Despite its recent difficulties, he has the opportunity to observe a race team that still stands out in many ways as the best in the industry, with emphasis on strategy, nimbleness, blending improvisation with aggression.

He claims to “discover the magic” and wants to “discover it.” His first few weeks in charge, he claims, will be about “trying to listen to the people to understand this beautiful magic machine that his Red Bull F1 has assembled, and eventually finding a way to contribute and support.”

Red Bull’s relationship with Horner was a paradox and dichotomy. On the one hand, he built it in his own style and, from the top, he was the architect.

He organized the team’s design and engineering teams to maximize the best from Adrian Newey’s creativity at the same time as he organized design and engineering chief Adrian Newey.

There was plenty of success as a result. Eight drivers won 124 grand prix victories, six constructors won, and six drivers won. Even when Red Bull’s chassis was still regarded as one of the best in the field, even when it lost its competitiveness in the beginning of hybrid engines. Renault’s power-units were the ones that failed.

As soon as Newey left, Red Bull’s competitive decline began. How much of that was cause and how much of that is still up for debate in light of McLaren’s rise to fame and the Red Bull’s current car-design philosophy’s weaknesses. Probably a little bit of both, in reality.

He lost Newey, the preeminent design wizard of the sport, to him. Additionally, Jonathan Wheatley, the sporting director who led the pit-lane’s best-drilled team, was responsible for the masterminding. And Will Courtenay, the team’s strategy director, who has run the best and most improvisational race operations for the past ten years and who has a future contract with McLaren.

Toto Wolff, the owner of Mercedes-F1’s Toto Wolff, referred to him as a “yapping little terrier,” because of his in-your-face demeanor. He even inquires about whether he is being portrayed as the “villain” midway through the most recent episode of Netflix’s popular Drive to Survive series. He was .

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Red Bull has evolved into the team that so many people detest because they reflect their culture and culture reflect leadership.

Red Bull’s brand image emphasizes edginess, fun, and disruption. The shareholders felt that some of Red Bull’s spirit had recently lost due to Horner’s controlling influence.

Mekies’ arrival offers a fresh start. He and Horner are a very different characters.

He can speak with the technical team on a deeper level because he has extensive F1 experience.

He also serves as a member of the McLaren Racing technical team, as Zak Brown refers to Andrea Stella, who has been a revelation since taking over as team manager at the end of 2022.

Mekies appears to be softer, less prickly, and less antagonistic than Horner as a character so far. He may be expected to approach any disputes that arise outside of his strong competitor’s perspective in a different way.

The controversy surrounding Horner, including the allegations, Verstappen’s tense relationship with his father Jos, questions about the driver’s future, and the drip-drip exodus of major figures, had sparked a siege mentality at Red Bull.