{"id":16266,"date":"2025-07-23T15:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/16266\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T15:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:33:09","slug":"max-verstappen-breaks-silence-on-new-red-bull-boss-laurent-mekies-ahead-of-f1-belgian-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/16266\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen breaks silence on new Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies ahead of F1 Belgian GP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Max Verstappen says he\u2019s \u201clooking forward\u201d to working with new Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies as the team embarks on a new era.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">During the two-week gap between the British and Belgian races, Red Bull announced they had parted ways with Christian Horner.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Horner had been Red Bull\u2019s boss since the team&#8217;s inception in 2005, overseeing title success with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/21\/sebastian-vettel\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sebastian Vettel <\/a>and, more recently, Verstappen.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Mekies was quickly announced as his replacement.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Mekies has a plethora of F1 experience, ranging from roles at Ferrari to the FIA and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/teams\/racing-bulls\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Racing Bulls<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The 48-year-old will be tasked with turning Red Bull\u2019s recent form around as the team looks to retain Verstappen for next season.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Verstappen has been heavily linked with a switch to Mercedes, with talks ongoing.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Speaking ahead of this weekend\u2019s trip to Spa-Francorchamps, Verstappen said:\u00a0\u201cII was back at the factory last week to spend some time in the sim with the team and I\u2019m looking forward to working closely with Laurent.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThere is always huge support in Belgium from the Orange Army and it is like a second home race for me, so I will be back wearing the Orange Lion helmet and my special cap and boots.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Spa has been a happy hunting ground for Verstappen over the years.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">He took a hat-trick of victories between 2021 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Verstappen added: \u201cSpa is a classic and always my favourite track on the calendar; a very old school circuit where you have to do everything right to get a good lap.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI enjoy the high-speed corners such as Eau Rouge, the layout which is different to other circuits and elevation changes that make the track more of a challenge to drive. Silverstone wasn\u2019t our best performance but it was a promising step to put it on pole in qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tsunoda feeling \u201csharp\u201d ahead of double-header<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/975014\/yuki-tsunoda\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yuki Tsunoda <\/a>needs a big result following another setback at the British GP.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Tsunoda finished last of the classified finishers at Silverstone after a torrid race.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Looking ahead to this weekend, Tsunoda said: \u201cI have spent the time off racing mixed between training very hard and using the break to mentally reset. I wanted to be the best prepared I could be coming into Spa and in better condition, mentally and physically.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI am feeling strong and sharp and looking forward to these next two races before summer break. We are coming into this race in a new era for the team and it will be good to link up again with Laurent, we worked really well together at Visa Cash App Racing Bulls.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI know how he likes to work and our full focus is on pushing forward and for me personally to start delivering the performance we need. Spa is a fun circuit and one that could suit us well, the Sprint always makes things tricky but the work and preparation we have done in this off time should set us up nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen says he\u2019s \u201clooking forward\u201d to working with new Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies as the team&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,825,946,85],"class_list":["post-16266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}