Laurent Mekies sticks with ‘zero contribution’ remark despite Max Verstappen and Helmut Marko’s praise amid step up in Red Bull’s F1 performance.
Since the arrival of Mekies as team boss of Red Bull, the F1 team has taken steps in the positive direction, especially with the wins in Monza and Baku. It almost got converted into triple in Singapore, but they had to be content with second on a circuit that usually doesn’t suit them.
Verstappen has been widely vocal about contribution made by Mekies, where he stressed that the engineering mind has helped Red Bull in better understanding of set-up instead of changing and chopping too much. Marko has backed the Dutchman in the assessment.
Post the second place finish in Singapore, Verstappen reiterated his stance after Red Bull managed to secure a better result on a circuit less suited to its car. “Yeah, well, I think Laurent is probably being too nice in that sense,” he said. “But at the end of the day, what is very good is that we just approach it as a proper team effort. We always tried to look into the details.
“We tried to understand what our weaknesses were. And since a few races, it’s definitely picked up a lot. Maybe now it was not as good as last race weekend, but sometimes you come out of a race just a bit lost, not really understanding why or how. I do think that now we understand why or how we can be better.
“And, yeah, by asking the right questions, including Laurent being involved in that, it’s just working well,” summed up Verstappen, as Mekies maintained his stance of ‘zero contribution’, while stressing on team factor in the progress made. He praised the analytical thinking which has led into identifying the true potential of its current machinery.
“It’s still zero, guys,” said Mekies to media. “It’s still zero. And I say it with the same seriousness as I told you after Monza. The improvement in performance is very basically due to the work of everyone trying to analyse the limitations of the car, race after race, what is stopping us from exploiting the potential of the car, how can we add performance to the car, where do we need to add performance for it to convert into lap time, and that work, again, with extremely strong and clear inputs from Max, that work is paying off, which is a good news.
“Because as a group, it just confirms that we have the best people that we can dream of, and we will continue working, we are not stopping there, we will take it again race by race and try to see if there is more to come. If you put it this way, I think everybody has been working extremely hard in Milton Keynes, from Race 1 to now. Never giving up on trying to unlock the potential of that car. It is fair to say that the progress in the last few weeks has been quite spectacular.
“And it’s credit to everyone, again, back at home, that have never given up. It’s credit to Max that has been with his sensitivity pushing us to explore different avenues. And finally, we found an avenue that unlocked a bit of performance. There is no single silver bullet. So there have been a good flow of updates. There have been different ways to run the car, and all together, it seems that we have a competitive package on most tracks.
“But it’s very difficult to wind back and to say, with the upgrades at the beginning of the year, where would you be? We are not looking backward, we are looking forward,” summed up Mekies. The recent push has potentially left part of 2026 work on the back bench. But the Frenchman sees it as a right trade-off, which will not affect as much on the next year project.
This work behind the scenes has helped them understand many things which they can utilise in 2026 project as well. “I think it’s, it was certainly from Oracle Red Bull Racing’s perspective, even without looking at the other guys around, I think it is very important that we get to understand if the project has more performance,” continued Mekies.
“It’s important that we get to the bottom of it, because we will judge, we will elaborate next year’s project even if the regulations are completely different with the same tools, with the same methodology, and it’s very important that we validate with this year’s car that our way of looking at the data is correct.
“Our way of developing the car is correct, and that produce that level of performance that will give us confidence in the winter for next year’s car. So, of course, it comes at a cost, undoubtedly, to the 2026 project, but we feel it’s the right trade-off for us without judging what the other guys are doing,” summed up Mekies.
Here’s Yuki Tsunoda on Singapore GP
Here’s Max Verstappen on Singapore GP win
