Mekies reveals what he wants to “avoid” at Red Bull
Having taken over the reign at Red Bull after the British Grand Prix, Laurent Mekies revealed that he will try to make sure that the Milton Keynes-based team has "the right focus."
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 what kind of plan has been outlined to him in terms of how he will run the team, Mekies said that he will try to make sure that the team has "the right focus."
"It’s probably, because of everything we’ve said earlier about trying to get to know the team, trying to understand the dynamics, trying to understand the strengths and the weaknesses, a bit early to talk about structure.
"But for sure, one thing that is very high in our priorities is to make sure that we have the right focus, that we avoid any bottlenecking in the company at all levels.
"It’s with that spirit that we look at what we need to do next. For sure, Formula 1 comes first. We have the chassis operation, the power unit operation.
"That’s what is going to be the main focus. It’s a racing team. People in the team love racing. That’s what they are here for. That’s going to be where the main focus is."
