{"id":369197,"date":"2025-12-24T16:50:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T16:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369197\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T16:50:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T16:50:19","slug":"how-max-verstappen-has-blown-away-new-red-bull-f1-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369197\/","title":{"rendered":"How Max Verstappen has ‘blown away’ new Red Bull F1 boss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Bull<\/a> boss Laurent Mekies has heaped praise on Max Verstappen, claiming that the four-time Formula 1<\/a> champion is the team\u2019s \u201cbest sensor in the car\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mekies has showered the Dutchman with plenty of positives since he took over from Christian Horner in July, including leaving him speechless after an overtake at the Dutch Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Since then, Verstappen nearly completed one of the most incredible Drivers\u2019 Championship<\/a> turnarounds, losing the title to Lando Norris by just two points. <\/p>\n

It was an effort that Verstappen lauded as the best season of his career, despite him falling short at the championship showdown in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as we have spent, all of us, too many years in Formula 1 and have seen Max getting unbelievable achievements, all I can tell you is that when you get the chance to work on his side of the paddock, you still get blown away,\u201d Mekies told media including Motorsport Week.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously you guys hear a lot of what is said over the radio, but you don\u2019t hear everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the quality of his technical feedback and the level of sensitivity that he has in the car [is very impressive].<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to have this joke inside the team where we\u2019d just say that he\u2019s the best sensor we have in the car. Arguably also the most expensive, but that\u2019s another question!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mekies later added that Verstappen\u2019s importance was most apparent during the team\u2019s poor run in mid-2025, where the team needed to lean on his feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe does that with the capacity to fully immerse himself in the project, not to judge it from outside,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut trying to find the right keys to make sure that we all push in the same direction, and to make sure that we all appreciate what he\u2019s trying to tell us with the communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LaurentLaurent Mekies has been blown away by Max Verstappen\u2019s talent<\/p>\n

Verstappen \u2018is motorsport\u2019<\/p>\n

Verstappen famously took victory in his debut GT3 outing at the Nurburgring in September. Beyond that, fans often spot him racing on online simulators.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman\u2019s dedication to the sport knows no limits, something that mightily impresses his boss. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe guy lives motorsport day and night, literally day and night. Probably more than any of us, he is motorsport in some respect,\u201d Mekies continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not escaping from any meetings to go and do something else, but he\u2019s completely merging it. <\/p>\n

\u201cBetween the races he\u2019s doing his sim racing, probably with somewhere in his mind the things that he can still learn or improve on his driving, or the preparations for the next race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he has a free weekend, he goes racing somewhere else with GT3 cars. That\u2019s something that looks completely unreal from our side, or as a matter of fact, is unreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013 Red Bull issues defiant claim over Max Verstappen\u2019s F1 future<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has heaped praise on Max Verstappen, claiming that the four-time Formula 1 champion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,825,38068,806,805,803,804,15196,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-369197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-max-verstappen","12":"tag-mekies","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-redbull","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369197","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=369197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}