Life After Horner - What Mekies Will Bring To Red Bull

Laurent Mekies intends to beryllium a soft-touch leader of Red Bull successful Formula 1, astatine slightest for nan play that he is settling successful pinch his caller team.

The 48-year-old Frenchman took complete arsenic squad main and main executive serviceman of Red Bull Racing aft Christian Horner was sacked by nan shareholders 3 days aft nan British Grand Prix.

Ultimately, Mekies' occupation is to move astir nan capacity of a squad that has been suffering a competitory diminution for nan past 18 months.

And successful position of getting disconnected to a affirmative start, this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix could not, connected paper, beryllium a amended spot for Mekies to make his first nationalist quality successful his caller role.

Red Bull's lead driver Max Verstappen has struggled to compete pinch nan McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris connected a accordant ground this year, but nan circuits wherever he has been capable to are accelerated and flowing - precisely for illustration Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps.

Verstappen, aft all, was connected rod astatine high-speed Silverstone 3 weeks ago, only for his title to travel unstuck successful nan bedewed arsenic a consequence of nan low-downforce set-up Red Bull chose.

Spa is celebrated for its long, demanding, accelerated corners, conscionable for illustration Suzuka, wherever Verstappen won from pole. It would beryllium nary astonishment to spot him repetition that feat this weekend.

While that would beryllium a bully fillip for nan caller Mekies-led Red Bull, it would not beryllium an denotation that their problems were down them.

The team's struggles this twelvemonth were cardinal successful nan operation of issues that led to Horner's departure. The shareholders - tired, too, of Horner's demands to beryllium successful full power of everything while nan squad appeared to beryllium fracturing astir him - felt thing needed to beryllium done.

But this is still nan halfway of nan squad that 2 years agone produced nan astir ascendant play successful F1 history, and for which past twelvemonth Verstappen won 7 of nan first 10 races to laic nan foundations for his 4th world title.

So it was nary astonishment to perceive Mekies pledging, successful a video distributed by Red Bull, to get nan champion retired of what he describes arsenic "this unthinkable team".

As personification who has been successful F1 for much than 20 years, and who has worked astatine governing assemblage nan FIA and Ferrari successful summation to 2 stints astatine Red Bull's inferior team, Mekies already knows good respective cardinal group astatine Red Bull, specified arsenic method head Pierre Wache and caput of engineering Paul Monaghan.

Mekies has spent nan past 2 weeks getting to cognize nan unit astatine Red Bull's guidelines successful Milton Keynes. In Spa, he has a chance to watch first-hand a title squad which still has a declare to beryllium successful galore aspects - strategy, nimbleness, mixing improvisation pinch aggression - nan champion successful nan business, notwithstanding its caller difficulties.

He says he wants to "discover nan magic". His first fewer weeks successful charge, he says, will beryllium astir "listening to nan group to effort to understand this beautiful magic instrumentality that his Red Bull F1, and yet find a measurement to lend and support".

There was a dichotomy, and a paradox, astir Red Bull nether Horner. On nan 1 hand, he built it successful his ain image - and he led a pyramid-like building from nan top.

At nan aforesaid time, he built nan creation and engineering facet of nan squad astir creation main Adrian Newey, organising nan group astir him to get nan champion retired of Newey's creativity.

The consequence was occurrence - and plentifulness of it. Eight drivers' titles, six constructors' championships, 124 expansive prix wins. Even erstwhile Red Bull fell from competitiveness during nan early years of hybrid engines, their chassis was still for nan astir portion regarded arsenic 1 of nan champion successful nan field. It was Renault's power-units that fell short.

Red Bull's competitory diminution started as soon arsenic Newey left. How overmuch of that was coincidence - successful nan discourse of McLaren's emergence to prominence and nan weaknesses of Red Bull's existent car-design accuracy being exposed - and really overmuch origin remains a constituent of debate. The truth is astir apt a spot of both.

Now some Horner and Newey person gone, and a caller Red Bull has to emerge. Mekies has to forge a caller squad that tin return to nan apical without Newey's influence.

Horner was nan leader who was accused of intersexual harassment and coercive, controlling behaviour by a female employee, accusations which were dismissed by two soul investigations past twelvemonth and ever denied by Horner.

He was nan feline who mislaid Newey, nan sport's pre-eminent creation genius. And Jonathan Wheatley, nan sporting head who masterminded nan best-drilled squad successful nan pit lane. And Will Courtenay, nan caput of nan strategy astatine nan squad that, for nan past decade and more, has had nan champion and astir improvisational title operations, and who is bound astatine immoderate constituent for McLaren.

Horner, is nan man whose in-your-face attack led Mercedes F1 leader Toto Wolff to picture him arsenic a "yapping small terrier". It's an image he was alert of himself - he moreover asks whether he is being portrayed arsenic nan "villain" midway done nan latest bid of Netflix's successful Drive to Survive series. He was.

Horner built up this image - whether intentionally aliases conscionable because of who he is - complete galore years. Not slightest done nan melodramatic 2021 play and his cardinal interventions pinch erstwhile title head Michael Masi, which preceded nan Australian's mishandling of nan rules during nan last title successful Abu Dhabi, which straight led to Verstappen taking nan title from Lewis Hamilton.

Teams are a reflection of their culture, and civilization is simply a reflection of leadership, truthful it's possibly nary astonishment that Red Bull person go nan squad galore group emotion to hate.

Red Bull's marque image is astir edginess, nosy and disruption. Under Horner's controlling influence, nan shareholders felt thing of nan tone of Red Bull had been mislaid successful caller times.

Mekies' presence is simply a chance for a cleanable slate. He is simply a very different characteristic from Horner.

An technologist pinch extended acquisition of F1, he tin prosecute pinch nan method squad connected an in-depth level.

In that way, he is simply a 'technical squad principal', arsenic McLaren Racing main executive serviceman Zak Brown refers to Andrea Stella, who has been specified a revelation since becoming McLaren squad leader astatine nan extremity of 2022.

As a character, Mekies seems truthful acold to beryllium softer, little prickly and little adversarial than Horner. While still a keen competitor, he mightiness beryllium expected to return a different attack to immoderate disputes that originate externally.

The controversies surrounding Horner - nan allegations; his volatile narration pinch Verstappen's begetter Jos; questions astir nan driver's future; nan drip-drip exodus of awesome figures - had led to thing of a siege mentality astatine Red Bull.

Mekies' presence is simply a chance for that to change, and for Red Bull to forge a caller relationship, pinch their rivals, pinch nan athletics and pinch its audience.