Mekies reveals the biggest difference between Red Bull and Racing Bulls
Although he refused to offer a clear comparison between Red Bull and Racing Bulls, Laurent Mekies conceded that the fact that the Milton Keynes-based outfit fights for victories requiered a different attitude.
Just two days after the British Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing announced that Christian Horner would leave the team with immediate effect.
The Briton has been at the helm for almost the entire team's history in F1 but his exit follows a couple of troublesome years of internal struggles since Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz passed away.
Horner has been in charge of Red Bull since the team entered the sport in 2025, serving as team principal for two decades. During that time, the 51-year-old Briton has led Red Bull to six constructors' and eight drivers' world championship titles.
Red Bull elected to promote Laurent Mekies to lead the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
Mekies began his career at Arrows before working as a race engineer at Minardi. He was promoted to chief engineer at Toro Rosso prior to becoming the safety director and, later, deputy race director at the FIA.
Prior to his time with Red Bull GmbH, he served as sporting director and deputy team principal at Ferrari from 2018 to 2023.
Asked to reveal the biggest differences between Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls, Mekies refused to give a clear answer given the short time he has spent at the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
"The short answer is no. I think it would be wrong to compare teams at this stage. But it’s fair to say that the game is changing when you try and fight for wins, when you’re trying to fight for championships, and how extreme you have to go in every single area to grab the last bit of performance.
"That means you need to make some very bold choices, very bold decisions. This is what you find in all these small boxes we were talking about before – how extreme the team goes about every single detail in order to eventually get that ultimate performance that you need for the sort of ambition the team has," concluded Mekies.
