Nico Rosberg ‘heard’ Laurent Mekies sided with Max Verstappen on race-winning decision at Monza

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Red Bull took an unexpected victory in Monza with Max Verstappen, with the Dutchman winning his third race of the season and breaking a 12-year record.

Verstappen’s Italian Grand Prix victory was the fastest F1 race of all time, beating the record previously held by Michael Schumacher in 2003 by nearly a full minute. It is only the second time the record for fastest F1 race has been broken in 54 years.

Red Bull made a breakthrough at Zandvoort with their car setup, which enabled Verstappen to also break the pole record at Monza.

They would go on to dominate McLaren in the race, with Verstappen winning by 19 seconds from Lando Norris, who stayed out longer in anticipation of a Safety Car and lost time due to a slow pit stop.

Verstappen praised Mekies in the post-race press conference for his “common-sense” approach behind the scenes, while Nico Rosberg later elaborated on a decision the French engineer made, which set them on the path to victory when speaking on the Sky Sports F1 podcast.

Nico Rosberg reveals Laurent Mekies gave Max Verstappen more ‘freedom’ with car setup

Mekies has been noted for his different managerial style compared to former team boss Christian Horner, and Rosberg revealed that he went against Red Bull engineers and sided with Verstappen in Monza.

“Monza is such an outlier in terms of car, wing set-up, and car set-up. So we can’t read too much into the performance of that going forward for these other tracks,” said Rosberg.

“But what I also heard is that, Laurent being an engineer, actually had an impact now on this decision that Max was able to make. Because he, as the most senior person in the room with engineering competence, was overseeing this dynamic of the engineers seeing their simulation numbers and Max wanted to go a different route.

“In the end (Laurent) called the shot and said ‘Let’s go with Max’s feeling out there’ and gave him the freedom to go down his route, which proved to be right.”

READ MORE: The best moments of Max Verstappen’s career in Formula 1

Max Verstappen has a lot of ‘faith’ in Laurent Mekies

The Italian GP was Mekies’ first Grand Prix win with Red Bull and while it would be a stretch to suggest they are going to turn around their season, it does bode well for the Milton Keynes squad amid their testing times on track.

F1 commentator David Croft noted how Verstappen has more belief in Mekies given his extensive engineering background and F1 experience, having worked for both Ferrari and the FIA in his 20+ year career.

“Max now has a lot of faith in Laurent Mekies, that he’s a team principal who will listen to what he’s saying. He’s been very critical of this car. 12 months ago, this was a monster of a car, and not in a good way,” said Croft.

“Together, they might now forge a very good partnership for Red Bull, where Max feels he’s being listened to, and we might see a little bit more of this.”

Whether Mekies’ engineering approach is enough to inspire Verstappen to continue with Red Bull beyond 2026 will be an important question moving forward, after the rumours surrounding his future at the team this season.