Laurent Mekies’ Red Bull tenure began on a positive note as Max Verstappen secured a sprint victory at the Belgian Grand Prix, before bringing home some solid points in the race.
The Dutchman’s hopes of a fifth consecutive drivers’ championship are over without a miracle, such is the advantage that McLaren have held in 2025.
Verstappen will stay at Red Bull in 2026, and team advisor Helmut Marko confirmed that would be the case after the Belgian Grand Prix.
It would have been a big risk to leave his team ahead of the 2026 F1 regulations, with no clue of who would end up being competitive in the future.
Verstappen is ‘feeling’ positive about Mekies and the new environment he has brought to the team, after 18 months filled with negativity.
Just days into the job, Mekies was left ‘heavily irritated’ by the FIA and their decision to delay the start of the Belgian Grand Prix. His cars were set up for the wet, and they lost a chance of a better result.
Photo by Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty ImagesMax Verstappen can’t ‘fool’ Laurent Mekies in Red Bull’s engineering department after Christian Horner exit
Even though Verstappen spent nearly a decade working with Christian Horner, he wasn’t able to give his old boss much of a farewell.
Horner ‘resisted’ one major decision to adopt Porsche power units for 2026, before opting for a Ford partnership. He was a very central figure at the team.
But he didn’t have much of an engineering background. It was more on the racing driver side of things. Erik van Haren suggests that Verstappen won’t be able to ‘fool’ Mekies from an engineering sense.
“You just notice that a lot has been said and written about that in recent days, but that is of course, true,” he said. “He’s a guy with an engineering background, right?
“So you can’t do anything to disadvantage Christian Horner. He was there for 20 years and achieved a lot of success. Only, Mekies has a different background. So, the conversation with Verstappen will also be a bit more about that.
“And you can’t really fool him as an engineer, because Max himself has a lot of technical baggage. He also has a lot of human expertise, right? It’s also a people manager that you hear.
“Verstappen is also super happy with his environment so far. It has only been a few weeks, but yes, the first signs in that regard are good.”
Why Max Verstappen leaving Red Bull would be difficult to execute for 2026
As Verstappen can no longer enter the summer break lower than third in the championship, he’s unable to activate any exit-related release clauses.
Instead, he would need to request a departure, and the relevant team would need to buy him out of his very expensive deal.
Not only would moving teams be a risk, but he might come to regret leaving Red Bull if they can manage to get their act together again. Burning that bridge could end up being a mistake.
Instead, allowing the first half of 2026 to unfold before making a call is a wise approach, and also allows for him to shop around and see who might be quick for the next few years.