‘Fundamental’ change spotted at Red Bull since Christian Horner exit

Former F1 technical director and car designer Gary Anderson has spotted a crucial change at Red Bull since Christian Horner’s departure.

Horner was sacked as Red Bull team principal and CEO in July after 20 years in charge, with Laurent Mekies promoted from sister team Racing Bulls to take over from the Briton with immediate effect. 

Mekies oversaw Red Bull’s first victory since Horner exited the team as Max Verstappen crushed his rivals with a dominant drive at last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

It has emerged that a key set-up demand from Verstappen paved the way for his surprise victory and Anderson believes Mekies’ engineering background has been a contributing factor in Red Bull’s recent uptick in form.

“I believe something has changed fundamentally at the team since Christian Horner departed and Laurent Mekies arrived,” Anderson wrote in The Telegraph.

“Horner spoke a good game when it came to engineering, but he was not an engineer – Mekies is. He appears to be driving the team like Andrea Stella is at McLaren, with a sound engineering background and a focus on facts.

“It is a whole different world for the team because the man at the top can help to understand why the car was quick and not just celebrate that it was quick. Red Bull had been lacking in this area since Adrian Newey left last year.

“It will be interesting to see if they can keep this thought pattern and direction going because last year, and earlier this year, they seemed to be lost and unable to understand their car. This win, and the manner of it, suggests they are on the road to changing that.”

What role has Laurent Mekies played?

Mekies was keen to downplay suggestions that he had any influence on Red Bull’s resurgence at Monza.

“The answer is a very easy one, the level of my contribution is zero,” Mekies told reporters at Monza.

“And I'm not joking either. It's 1,500 people working on making the car faster, so these are the talents that make the car faster, that make the hundredths and the thousandths [of lap time], and that make the set of options with the new components available. So the short answer is that my contribution is zero.

“Our only role is to make sure that the talents that we have are put in the right conditions to express that talent at best. That's the only thing we are doing, so that's the extent of the contribution. That's it, nothing more.”

But others have highlighted how Mekies has utilised his engineering know-how at Red Bull.

“Now that Laurent Mekies is in charge, they have a man with an engineering background as their team principal, who probably better understands the engineering demands from what his drivers are telling him, than what Christian Horner did,” Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft said.

“I think that Mekies-Verstappen partnership took a huge step forward as well. The team principal went into bat with the engineers and said ‘I know your simulations say one thing but I think we can make this work with what Max is saying so let’s give it a go’.

“To me, there was a lot of hope for the future from Red Bull out of this, and the future this season too, and maybe Max now has a lot of faith in Laurent Mekies that he’s a team principal that will listen to what he’s saying.

“He’s been very critical of this car. 12 months ago this was a monster of a car and not in a good way. But together they might forge a very good partnership for Red Bull where Max feels he’s being listened to and we might see a little bit more of this.”