2016 World Champion Nico Rosberg and Sky F1 colleague, David Croft, believe Laurent Mekies made his first major impact on Red Bull and their result at Monza.

Max Verstappen delivered a sublime drive to victory from pole at the Italian Grand Prix, having stuck to his guns on an RB21 setup direction which paid off handsomely. Sky F1 lead commentator David Croft suggested that Mekies played a crucial role by making Verstappen’s voice heard, as for all the skills which former boss Christian Horner had, he was not “an engineer”.

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It has been a challenging season for Red Bull. The team sits fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, the lack of points scored by the second car biting hard, while Verstappen is most likely out of contention to win a fifth straight Drivers’ title. But the Italian Grand Prix provided a huge, much-needed boost.

For the first time since Silverstone, Verstappen put himself on pole position at Monza. Afterwards, he spoke of how he had insisted on an RB21 setup route which “some people” within Red Bull were not convinced of. He followed that path and reaped the rewards.

Turning that into a controlled victory, Verstappen said that in “a lot of races”, Red Bull had been “shooting left and right a little bit with the setup of the car”.

But, with Mekies “having an engineering background, he’s asking the right questions to the engineers – common-sense questions – so I think that works really well.”

As for Mekies, when he was informed of Verstappen’s comments, he told PlanetF1.com’s Thomas Maher and other media outlets that: “The answer is a very easy one. The level of contribution is zero,” from himself after Red Bull secured their first win since Imola.

Speaking on Sky’s ‘The F1 Show’ podcast, Croft hinted otherwise. He stated that with Mekies having taken over as Red Bull team boss, following the axing of Christian Horner post-Silverstone, Red Bull now has a team principal who “probably better understands the engineering demands of what his drivers are telling him than Christian Horner did.”

Expanding further on his stance, Croft said that Mekies “went into bat with the engineers” and made the call that Verstappen’s guidance should be followed, the fallout from that very positive for the “future” of Red Bull.

To Croft’s viewpoint, Rosberg responded: “I mean, careful, because Monza is such an outlier in terms of car wing setup, car setup, so we can’t read too much into the performance of that now, for going forward, for these other tracks.

“But nevertheless, yeah, I also heard that Laurent, being an engineer, actually had an impact now on this decision that Max was able to make.

“Because he, as the most senior person in the room with engineering competence, was seeing this dynamic of the engineers seeing their simulation number, and Max wanting to go a different route, and in the end, called the shot and said, ‘Let’s go with Max’s feeling out there,’ and gave him the freedom to go down his route, which proved to be right.

“So it was an example of where Laurent had a first really big impact on actual performance and winning a race together as a team.”

It must be stressed that Red Bull did not trigger wholesale changes to its engineering team amidst the Horner to Mekies transition. The same crew which worked under Horner remain with Mekies in charge.

Podcast host Simon Lazenby asked Rosberg and Croft whether they were both saying such a scenario would not have happened at Red Bull under Horner.

Croft replied: “I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but I think Laurent has got the expertise, the background and the knowledge to have that conversation with the engineers, and the engineers then respect Laurent’s views.

“Because, Christian, for all his strengths, isn’t an engineer. And I think sometimes, you need someone, when you’re having that engineering conversation, your senior person, if they understand all the engineering principles, is going to be able to call the shot in Max’s favour this time, and not say, ‘Well, actually, Max, the engineers probably know a bit better. Let’s go with them.’

“I’m not saying that happened before, but it definitely didn’t happen this time around.”

Rosberg said: “No criticism of course, to Christian, who’s been an awesome leader and one of the greatest we’ve seen in our sport.

“Just that, in this particular case, Laurent’s experience worked to his favour as a leader, in this example.”

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Continuing, Rosberg quipped: “I also like to hear how Crofty, who lives right on Cranfield airport, has learned to identify the loud noise from Max Verstappen’s aeroplane.

“And Crofty has confirmed that Max Verstappen is very often in at the Red Bull headquarters, and very often, therefore, also in the simulator.

“So also a bit of a learning for me today, that he’s really someone who has a good work ethic and still is keeping on pushing hard together with the team to keep winning, which was great to hear.”

Verstappen is 94 points behind Drivers’ Championship leader Oscar Piastri with eight rounds to go.

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