{"id":30973,"date":"2025-07-29T22:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T22:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/30973\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T22:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T22:08:08","slug":"max-verstappen-told-he-cant-fool-laurent-mekies-in-one-department-after-christian-horner-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/30973\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen told he can’t ‘fool’ Laurent Mekies in one department after Christian Horner switch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Laurent Mekies\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman\u2019s hopes of a fifth consecutive drivers\u2019 championship<\/a> are over without a miracle, such is the advantage that McLaren have held in 2025.<\/p>\n

Verstappen<\/a> will stay at Red Bull<\/a> in 2026, and team advisor Helmut Marko confirmed that would be the case after the Belgian Grand Prix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It would have been a big risk to leave his team ahead of the 2026 F1 regulations<\/a>, with no clue of who would end up being competitive in the future.<\/p>\n

Verstappen is \u2018feeling\u2019 positive about Mekies<\/a> and the new environment he has brought to the team, after 18 months filled with negativity.<\/p>\n

Just days into the job, Mekies was left \u2018heavily irritated\u2019 by the FIA<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Ted Kravitz says Laurent Mekies will not make one \u2018full-time\u2019 Red Bull commitment after replacing Christian Horner<\/a><\/p>\n

\"RedPhoto by Alex Bierens de Haan\/Getty ImagesMax Verstappen can\u2019t \u2018fool\u2019 Laurent Mekies in Red Bull\u2019s engineering department after Christian Horner exit<\/p>\n

Even though Verstappen spent nearly a decade working with Christian Horner<\/a>, he wasn\u2019t able to give his old boss much of a farewell.<\/p>\n

Horner \u2018resisted\u2019 one major decision<\/a> to adopt Porsche power units for 2026, before opting for a Ford partnership. He was a very central figure at the team.<\/p>\n

But he didn\u2019t have much of an engineering background. It was more on the racing driver side of things. Erik van Haren suggests that Verstappen won\u2019t be able to \u2018fool\u2019 Mekies from an engineering sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just notice that a lot has been said and written about that in recent days, but that is of course, true,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s a guy with an engineering background, right? <\/p>\n

\u201cSo you can\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you can\u2019t 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\u2019s also a people manager that you hear. <\/p>\n

\u201cVerstappen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Max Verstappen joining Mercedes now looks \u2018out of the question\u2019 as Toto Wolff\u2019s final option to sign him is ruled out<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Why Max Verstappen leaving Red Bull would be difficult to execute for 2026<\/p>\n

As Verstappen can no longer enter the summer break lower than third in the championship, he\u2019s unable to activate any exit-related release clauses.<\/p>\n

Instead, he would need to request a departure, and the relevant team would need to buy him out of his very expensive deal.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laurent Mekies\u2019 Red Bull tenure began on a positive note as Max Verstappen secured a sprint victory at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,1199,14758,825,806,805,803,804,946,85],"class_list":["post-30973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-christian-horner","tag-laurent-mekies","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30973","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=30973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}