Red Bull insider perfectly sums up the difference between Christian Horner and Laurent Mekies

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Laurent Mekies addressed fans at Red Bull’s season launch on Wednesday ahead of his first full year as team principal. Mekies replaced Christian Horner just before the 2025 summer break.

The Frenchman made an excellent start, overseeing Max Verstappen’s extraordinary fightback in the title race. 104 points off top after Zandvoort, he eventually finished just two behind Lando Norris.

Mekies insisted that Red Bull keep upgrading their car, whereas Horner wanted to stop development to prioritise 2026. Clearly, that was a risky decision, but the uptick in results generated immediate goodwill.

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Given that F1 teams always operate several months ahead, Red Bull’s performances this year, and even more so in 2027, will be the true test of Mekies’ leadership. He faces a daunting task in 2026 as they race with their own power units for the very first time.

Laurent Mekies isn’t interested in mind games like Christian Horner

Horner played a pantomime villain role in his final years at Red Bull, one he very much leaned into during his Drive to Survive appearances. This filtered down to the whole team and frustrated the Austrian ownership.

Horner’s willingness to resort to mind games intensified his feuds with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and McLaren’s Zak Brown.

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Indeed, one suspects Horner would have welcomed the Red Bull mechanics removing the tape from Lando Norris’ grid box at the 2025 US GP. The move earned the team a £43k fine but was designed to unsettle Norris by denying him his reference marker.

Mekies said at the following race in Mexico that his team would no longer resort to ‘silly games’.

“Imagine if Christian Horner was still in charge,” an unnamed team member told The Athletic. “This would have gone on much longer.”

The ‘old’ Red Bull was on display during the Abu Dhabi GP

‘Tapegate’, as it was billed in some quarters, sums up the difference between Horner and Mekies. The former racing driver is willing to use every possible weapon in his arsenal against his rivals, while the ex-engineer is solely focused on optimising car performance.

For most of his time in charge, Horner’s approach worked. Red Bull won the title in eight separate seasons, prevailing in close battles with Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren, but the early evidence suggests that Mekies’ alternative philosophy can be successful too.

There was a flash of the ‘old’ Red Bull during the title decider in Abu Dhabi, when Yuki Tsunoda was overly aggressive against Norris in an effort to hold him up. Tsunoda’s weaving earned him a penalty and angered McLaren, who had been promised a fair fight by Mekies.

Still, the former Racing Bulls boss appears more inclined to maintain healthy relations with his rivals, which has been welcomed by both Brown and Wolff. His outlook may shift over time.