{"id":793958,"date":"2026-07-11T00:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T00:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/793958\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T00:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T00:59:09","slug":"new-boss-same-problems-at-red-bull-plus-drivers-fear-spa-will-be-sad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/793958\/","title":{"rendered":"New boss, same problems at Red Bull? Plus: Drivers fear Spa will be \u2018sad\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today I\u2019m in a reflective mood, thinking about how this is only Formula 1\u2019s second weekend off in eight weeks. Two races to go until the August summer break.<\/p>\n

And by this time next week, we\u2019ll be back in action at the Belgian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m Alex, and Madeline Coleman will be along later.<\/p>\n

Red Bull Problems: Issues facing boss Mekies 1 year in<\/p>\n

As we covered in\u00a0Tuesday\u2019s PT,<\/a>\u00a0ex-Red Bull team boss Christian Horner made his return to the F1 paddock for the first time\u00a0since his axing last year<\/a>. Inevitably, the camera crew of the Netflix docuseries \u201cDrive to Survive\u201d was on hand to capture the moment.<\/p>\n

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Horner being forced to step down from the team he ran for more than 20 years, and his exit was\u00a0made official<\/a>\u00a0in September 2025.\u00a0In the intervening time, Horner and Red Bull agreed to a\u00a0mammoth settlement figure<\/a>\u00a0over his termination.<\/p>\n

Well \u2026<\/p>\n

Horner may be plotting a comeback with Aston Martin or Alpine,\u00a0or being headhunted to run a new entry from Chinese manufacturer BYD \u2014 depending on which reports you believe.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0no deal is done or official yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the BYD reports, I do find it fascinating that FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem went out of his way in what was ostensibly a roundtable interview on the World Endurance Championship (which I attended at Le Mans last month) to insist F1\u2019s next team will be \u201cfrom China, hopefully<\/a>.\u201d (More on the WEC later.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, there is plenty more to consider about Red Bull right now, one year into its time being led by an \u201cengineer with a heart<\/a>,\u201d Laurent Mekies.\u00a0Especially as senior staff\u00a0continue to leave<\/a>\u00a0under him, and Red Bull\u2019s version of the\u00a0Ferrari-pioneered<\/a>\u00a0flipped rear wing concept keeps causing star driver Max Verstappen to crash.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s fair to say Verstappen is\u00a0particularly unhappy<\/a>\u00a0about that.<\/p>\n

One way in which Red Bull both has and hasn\u2019t changed since Horner\u2019s exit concerns the pantomime villain character he and, by extension, his team played when it came to F1\u2019s ever-present paddock politics.<\/p>\n

Mekies certainly gets involved in the politics less frequently, but it\u2019s worth remembering how he kept undermining McLaren\u2019s statements about Gianpiero Lambiase\u00a0switching sides for 2028<\/a>.\u00a0And that Red Bull and McLaren somehow got in a spat\u00a0about tape<\/a>\u00a0late in the 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, there has been notably less focus on how Red Bull\u2019s junior drivers are performing, with Horner gone and his old sparring partner, Helmut Marko, also leaving the team\u00a0at the end of 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Red Bull\u2019s Isack Hadjar shone at Silverstone, and there are no questions over the call Mekies and co. made to promote the Frenchman and drop Yuki Tsunoda at the end of last year.
\nLiam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad are thriving at Racing Bulls, while Nikola Tsolov\u00a0 is also on a three-race winning streak in Formula 2, where he leads the drivers\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see what Red Bull does if Tsolov does win the F2 title in 2026, as that would surely place Lawson\u2019s F1 future\u00a0under threat, again<\/a>. Or, it takes the\u00a0Pierre Gasly approach<\/a>\u00a0and sends Tsolov to another championship for one last year of motorsport finishing school, instead of fast-tracking him to F1.<\/p>\n

But back to Mekies.<\/p>\n

The change of car-design regulations from 2025 means\u00a0Mekies is dealing with a completely different set of technical problems compared to Horner just over a year ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One element of the new rules \u2014 the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities \u2014 is a particular headache for Mekies\u2019 reign, as the FIA has ruled (but not openly declared) that\u00a0Red Bull has F1\u2019s best internal combustion engine component<\/a>\u00a0of the five new engines being used across the grid in 2026.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s good and bad for Mekies.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good\u00a0that Red Bull\u2019s new Powertrains division, working in conjunction\u00a0with Ford<\/a>, can make some potent power technology.
\nIt\u2019s bad\u00a0that it\u2019s the battery energy deployment side that has a deficit to Mercedes and seemingly cannot catch up, as the ADUO factor is only activated based on\u00a0measurements of ICE performance<\/a>.
\nMekies has already voiced his concerns that this\u00a0could trap Red Bull<\/a>\u00a0in a cycle of never being able to upgrade its engine.<\/p>\n

But, more awkwardly for Mekies, is how car handling issues that became so familiar to Verstappen from mid-2024 onward are happening again, just when the four-time world champion\u2019s future is, again,\u00a0in the spotlight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t shock me if Red Bull goes back to its old rear wing design at Spa next week, given the\u00a0fast and fearsome nature<\/a>\u00a0of that track. But that would be applying a bandaid to a more serious wound.<\/p>\n

Mekies has been open about how Red Bull concentrating resources on Verstappen\u2019s unlikely (but still brilliant) late-2025 title tilt meant it took an \u201cunavoidable\u201d\u00a0hit to its 2026 car development<\/a>. (As an aside, it was interesting to hear McLaren team principal Andrea Stella say something similar at Silverstone last Saturday \u2026)<\/p>\n

But perhaps Mekies should reflect on the 2025 recovery,\u00a0in which\u00a0he has already shown Verstappen he can oversee a huge upswing in performance and deliver race-winning chances for the Dutchman.\u00a0It just seems that Year 2 of replacing Horner may need to go the same way, or better, to keep Verstappen on board for 2027.<\/p>\n

Now, over to Madeline to look back at Silverstone and ahead to Spa.<\/p>\n

Inside the Paddock with Madeline Coleman: Drivers fear Spa will repeat energy issues\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahead of the British GP last week, many drivers\u00a0aired concerns<\/a>\u00a0about how the cars would feel on the high-speed track, given its layout would quickly drain their engine battery energy, and the impact it would have on racing as a result.<\/p>\n

The expectation among some drivers, including Ollie Bearman and Oscar Piastri, is that\u00a0there will be a similar story at Spa next week,\u00a0given the Belgian track also features many fast corners and straights. Piastri went as far as saying Spa and Italy\u2019s Monza after the summer break will \u201cbe sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough, because some of the moves genuinely are still very good, but some of them really aren\u2019t,\u201d Piastri said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re racing people, especially on the first few laps,\u00a0there\u2019s such a massive element of luck now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The McLaren driver went on to give an example from the Silverstone sprint race, where he used his Boost button and caught Mercedes\u2019 George Russell \u201cin a straight but too close to a corner,\u201d forcing Piastri to brake. But he\u2019d only pressed the Boost button as early as he did to keep Charles Leclerc behind him \u2014 and when the Ferrari driver did not, it ended up being a wasted usage for Piastri.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a massive game of flipping a coin, basically, on what the deployment around you is like and sometimes it works for you, sometimes it doesn\u2019t,\u201d Piastri said. \u201cThis is a very extreme example of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not every driver sees the new style of racing as a problem.<\/p>\n

Audi\u2019s Gabriel Bortoleto didn\u2019t mince words when asked how he found racing the new cars at Silverstone and whether the famed track lost any of its magic in the new era: \u201cI think we should turn the page.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still driving quick through Copse. It\u2019s 175 mph, so I\u2019m still lifting to do that corner,\u201d Bortoleto said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot spend three years talking about the same problem every time.\u00a0The cars are still fun to drive.\u00a0It\u2019s different, we need to adapt to that, and it\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back to you, Alex.<\/p>\n

WEC: Endurance racing back in the spotlight<\/p>\n

A month removed from Toyota winning\u00a0one of the closest ever 24 Hours of Le Mans<\/a>, by just 11 seconds over BMW, the WEC is back in action. (I won\u2019t go too much into why it isn\u2019t the\u00a0closest, but basically officials used to measure Le Mans by distance, not time, along with the drivers running to their cars ahead of the start.)<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s WEC race is taking place in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, on the\u00a0same Interlagos track<\/a>\u00a0that hosts F1 every year.<\/p>\n

Cadillac won the WEC race a year ago to make up for its disappointing Le Mans result. And, in 2026, this is no different \u2014 after Cadillac led 184 laps at Le Mans and lost\u00a0another pole to a penalty<\/a>, it headed to Brazil searching for a pick-me-up.<\/p>\n

Luke explained just how Cadillac\u2019s many motorsport programs \u2014 including an IndyCar engine supply from parent company General Motors via its Chevrolet brand \u2014 means\u00a0they can all learn from each other<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Plus, Eric Warren, General Motors\u2019 vice president of global motorsports competition, outlined\u00a0how the company is aiming for a motorsport Triple Crown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While this is primarily a driver\u2019s accolade, one organization can lay claim to it: McLaren. As I\u00a0got into here<\/a>, it\u2019s returning to Le Mans in 2027 to try and\u00a0claim another<\/a>. It\u2019s MCL-HY (pictured above) has hit the track for private testing and is being run by James Barclay, who did a solid job of running the Jaguar squad in Formula E.<\/p>\n

Ahead of Le Mans last month, triple (and only) W Series champion and former Indy NXT driver Jamie Chadwick completed a\u00a0history-making test<\/a>.\u00a0In driving the Genesis Magma Racing GMR-001, Chadwick became the first female driver to test a Hypercar at Le Mans.<\/p>\n

As Chadwick told Madeline, she\u2019s\u00a0hoping to forge a long-term career<\/a>\u00a0in endurance racing.<\/p>\n

Outside the Points<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc69\u200d\ud83d\udcbb Luke and Madeline\u00a0answered reader questions<\/a>\u00a0after the British GP \u2014 with a fair bit of interest in the safety car ending we also covered in depth in\u00a0Tuesday\u2019s PT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfce Ferrari\u00a0got an early trial<\/a> of the Madring circuit set to host the Spanish GP in September, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton completing just over 60 miles each on special demonstration Pirelli tires.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8 The Madring has come a long way in\u00a0just a few weeks<\/a>, since Luke visited after F1\u2019s most recent race in Spain.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udceb Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-793958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}