Red Bull may now be copying ‘very successful’ McLaren idea with Laurent Mekies as Christian Horner model scrapped

Follow us on Google Discover

Laurent Mekies took the reins at Red Bull Racing following Christian Horner’s departure from the team following a suboptimal opening half of the 2025 season.

Laurent Mekies was serving as the team principal for Racing Bulls before his promotion to team principal and CEO of the Red Bull team at the start of July.

Mekies’ impact on Red Bull has already been noted, with the Frenchman holding the kinds of meetings that were shunned under Horner‘s leadership.

One of the reasons Mekies was chosen to lead the Austrian constructor for the rest of the 2025 season and into F1’s new era in 2026 is due to his engineering background.

He served as chief engineer for Toro Rosso between 2006 and 2014, with Carlos Sainz pinpointing his understanding of the needs of F1 drivers as a key trait that he holds.

Laurent Mekies’ engineering background bodes well for Red Bull’s hopes in turning their future around

Speaking on behalf of Motorsport NL in the F1 paddock ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, journalist Ronald Vording made a link between the upwards trajectory of teams that are headed by team principals with backgrounds in engineering.

The Dutchman stated, “It’s interesting that it fits into a kind of trend; Mekies has a completely different background than Horner. Mekies comes more from the engineering side, and that is a trend in Formula 1.

“You also see it at McLaren, right, where Andreas Stella has been promoted to team principal. Very successful. You see it at Williams, where James Vowles, with an engineering background, is now team principal.

“In a certain sense, despite the circumstances and reasons at Red Bull being completely different, Mekies does somewhat fit into that picture. So that is a pattern that we actually see more and more here in this paddock.”

Martin Brundle thinks having a team principal who has been ’embedded’ within the team is the ‘new way’ in F1

Sky Sports F1 pundit Martin Brundle agrees with the sentiment that having a former member who knows the ins and outs of what the different departments experience as a team principal is beneficial as a whole for an F1 team.

Speaking before FP1 in Belgium, the former F1 driver said, “I think he’ll be much more team-focused. It’s the new way in Formula 1.

“It’s people who have been really embedded in the day-to-day operation of a Formula 1 team. Whether it was on the technical side or the engineering side.

“Andrea Stella is a very good example of that at McLaren. Jonathan Wheatley, now team principal at Sauber, and James Vowles [at Williams] would be another example.”

According to a report from ESPN, sources within the wider Red Bull organisation have expressed the feeling that Red Bull will eventually appoint a CEO to lead the commercial side of the team, leaving the sporting side entirely for Mekies to focus on.

This move appears to be a step in the right direction for the Austrian constructor. One of the problems Red Bull experienced towards the end of Horner’s tenure as team principal was the fact that he refused to defer responsibilities to members of the team who were better-equipped to deal with them.