{"id":109687,"date":"2025-10-30T23:48:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/109687\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T23:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:48:15","slug":"martin-brundle-says-laurent-mekies-has-shown-christian-horner-why-he-shouldnt-be-a-team-principal-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/109687\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Brundle says Laurent Mekies has shown Christian Horner why he shouldn’t be a team principal again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/ Follow us on Google Discover <\/a> <\/p>\n

Martin Brundle is \u2018very impressed\u2019 with Laurent Mekies\u2019 start as Red Bull team principal. The outlook of the team\u2019s season has totally changed since Mekies took over from Christian Horner.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen had ruled himself out of title contention, but while a 35-point gap to Lando Norris with four races remaining is still significant, he now believes he has a chance.<\/p>\n

Red Bull\u2019s aggressive upgrade plan<\/a> has also brought them back into play for P2 in the constructors\u2019, with Ferrari just 10 points ahead. Mekies must get consistent production out of Yuki Tsunoda \u2013 one of the things he\u2019s yet to manage \u2013 if he wants to steal second place.<\/p>\n

Position Constructors’ Standings PointsPts 1 713 2 356 3 355 4 346 <\/p>\n

The former Racing Bulls boss has refused to take any credit for the turnaround, but Brundle<\/a>, who was speaking on the Sky Sports \u2018F1 Show\u2019 podcast, has applauded him for showing absolutely no \u2018ego\u2019. <\/p>\n

Laurent Mekies has shown Christian Horner that F1 has changed<\/p>\n

Mekies previously worked for Ferrari<\/a> as racing director, but becoming Red Bull boss brought a level of pressure he\u2019d never experienced, particularly in the wake of Horner<\/a>. Having joined the team before their 2005 debut, he delivered 14 championships in 20 years.<\/p>\n

But Horner\u2019s departure may underscore a shift within Formula 1 management circles. As Brundle points out, teams are finding more success with \u2018an engineering background\u2019.<\/p>\n

McLaren\u2019s two-time title-winner Andrea Stella is at the forefront of this trend, but virtually every team on the grid is now led by a former engineer, with Mercedes (Toto Wolff) and Alpine (Flavio Briatore) the only exceptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery impressed, of course,\u201d Brundle said of Mekies<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s handling it in a very mature way \u2013 ego absolutely non-existent, parked. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a new type of team principal these days, aren\u2019t we? That\u2019s why Christian wouldn\u2019t want to come back as a team principal, I think. <\/p>\n

\u201cMore of an engineering background seems to be the way to tie together these vast quantities of highly specialised people in a team. He\u2019s got help with the politics, with Helmut Marko and others.\u201d<\/p>\n

How much would it cost Christian Horner to set up a 12th F1 team?<\/p>\n

Having spoken to the former Red Bull chief, Brundle says it\u2019s \u2018absolutely clear\u2019 that Horner will only come back to F1 if he gets a stake in a team<\/a>. He may oversee the bigger picture while deferring day-to-day control to a senior engineer.<\/p>\n

If he can\u2019t reach a satisfactory deal with one of the existing outfits, then Horner could set up his own team<\/a>. It\u2019s believed that this will cost around \u00a3333m, but crucially, he\u2019s already lining up financial backing.<\/p>\n

Under the terms of his separation with Red Bull, Horner can return to F1 from next spring<\/a>. Many teams may be waiting to see how they fare under the new regulations before considering structural change.<\/p>\n

Horner was recently linked to Ferrari<\/a>, but the story has gone quiet after chairman John Elkann publicly backed Fred Vasseur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us on Google Discover Martin Brundle is \u2018very impressed\u2019 with Laurent Mekies\u2019 start as Red Bull team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[55011,38758,36712,111,139,69,11107,213],"class_list":["post-109687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-christian-horner","tag-laurent-mekies","tag-martin-brundle","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}