Red Bull secured its first win under the new leadership of Laurent Mekies at the Italian Grand Prix, thanks to a masterful drive from Max Verstappen.
Right before the summer break, the Red Bull higher-ups made the call to fire Christian Horner and promote Laurent Mekies from Racing Bulls to the big job.
Since then, the mood around the team has improved, notably the support for Yuki Tsunoda, but Verstappen has also been positive about the new leadership.
After the race, Mekies was reluctant to take credit for the result and made sure to credit the staff who worked on last year’s race at Monza, from which the team made several adjustments.
“The level of contribution is zero, and I’m not joking either, it’s 1,500 people working on making that car faster, so these are the addition of these talents that make the car faster, that make the hundreds and make the thousands and make the set of options available and make the new components available, so the short answer is zero,” he told reporters after the session.
Red Bull’s race performance was stellar, considering how Verstappen pulled a 20-second gap on the McLaren cars, which had looked dominant all weekend long.
The advantage took Mekies by surprise, especially since McLaren’s strongest area is race pace.
“We were expecting a defense race and trying to work out scenarios on how to defend against these guys, and ultimately, we had a pace advantage today,” he said.
“Certainly, Max has done an amazing job, and it’s a good sign after again, same as in the very first questions, after all the hard work put into the race pace.”
Mekies also cited Verstappen’s insistence on keeping a specific rear wing, which presented some issues regarding the set-up.
Still, the driver thought it was better to work around those issues.
“Max has been very strong and good at pushing us to keep it on the car and to find other solutions to give him the balance back, and the guys have been doing an amazing job in managing that, so that’s why ultimately both cars were on a different level today,” Mekies added.
While it is still early in the post-Horner era, Red Bull has seemingly taken into account the opinions of drivers and multiple staff members, compiling them into a race-winning set-up.
Italian Grand Prix Results
- Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
- Lando Norris (McLaren)
- Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
- Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
- George Russell (Mercedes)
- Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
- Alex Albon (Williams)
- Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber)
- Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
- Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls)
- Carlos Sainz (Williams)
- Ollie Bearman (Haas)
- Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull)
- Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)
- Esteban Ocon (Haas)
- Pierre Gasy (Alpine)
- Franco Colapinto (Alpine)
- Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
DNF: Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)
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