Incensed Laurent Mekies once said Christian Horner and Red Bull got off lightly in F1 rules scandal

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Laurent Mekies has already started work as the new team principal at Red Bull Racing. Appointed as Christian Horner’s replacement with immediate effect, he attended a filming day at Silverstone on Thursday.

Mekies’ experience across various roles will help him as he faces by far the biggest challenge of his career. He started out in F1 as a race engineer, working with drivers like Mark Webber at Minardi.

When Red Bull bought the team and turned them into Toro Rosso, he was promoted to chief engineer. He remained in that post until 2014, when he joined the FIA.

The Bulls have long been among the best at exploiting F1’s rulebook, which every team tries to do, and Mekies’ experience at the sport’s governing body will help him in that regard. He also has a comprehensive knowledge of one of Red Bull’s main rivals in Ferrari.

How Laurent Mekies reacted when Red Bull breached the 2021 F1 cost cap

While he served most recently as team principal at Racing Bulls, Mekies rose to prominence as the racing director at Ferrari. He was also the deputy to Mattia Binotto and replacement Fred Vasseur.

Mekies was therefore one of the team’s spokesmen when the Red Bull cost-cap scandal erupted in 2022. They exceeded the limits by just under £2m the previous season, when Max Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton in a season-long title battle.

Red Bull were fined around £6m for the offence and hit with a 10% reduction in aerodynamic research time. They reached an ‘accepted breach agreement’ with the FIA beforehand.

Speaking to Sky Sports at the time, Mekies suggested that the penalty wasn’t ‘anywhere close’ to enough. He didn’t think it cancelled out the advantage they’d gained.

He said: “On our side, and you would probably expect it, we think the penalty is not going to be anywhere close to balance for what one could obtain from the amount of overspending we are talking about.

“We certainly feel it is low. We don’t see it on the same scale as being able to compensate the overspend that was done.”

Laurent Mekies’ first task as Christian Horner’s Red Bull replacement is obvious

Red Bull are, in a sense, promoting from within by hiring Mekies. Like many drivers, he steps up from the sister team.

But there’s a feeling that they missed out on another excellent candidate from within their ranks. Jonathan Wheatley put himself forward to replace Horner last year, but was rebuffed.

Wheatley has since joined Sauber, who will hope to compete with Red Bull long-term as they become the Audi works team next year. If Mekies succeeds, there will naturally be no sense of regret.

His first task is obvious, but critical – Mekies must keep hold of Max Verstappen for 2026 (at a minimum). This won’t solely be his responsibility, but he’ll quickly have to earn the faith of the superstar driver, who’s considering his future at the moment.