Different times require different leaders.
Parting ways with Christian Horner, and eventually Helmut Marko, was a bold move after all the success Red Bull enjoyed with the duo who built the squad from scratch into a title-winning machine.
Perhaps that was the point. Red Bull had become something of a wasps’ nest, with internal politics, power struggles and key people leaving one after another. Rebuilding a team requires a very different kind of leader than one who assembles it.
Laurent Mekies could hardly be more different from the team's creators. Calm, diplomatic, rational and seemingly always smiling, the Frenchman certainly presents a very different face for Red Bull. An overly simplistic assessment of someone you’d really have to work with to understand, maybe. But we're now starting to see what kind of culture Mekies is trying to cultivate at one of Formula 1's most successful teams.
When Red Bull started winning again in the second half of last year, Mekies was often asked how much he thought he personally had contributed to that progress after a difficult start to the season. His answer was often "zero", or close to it. He simply hadn’t been there long enough to influence much.
What a nice guy, some would say. Too well PR-trained, others might argue.
Nobody really asks him that question anymore.
How much of Red Bull’s progress in 2026 is down to Mekies remains impossible to quantify. It is certainly in a better place than at the start of the season, and it’s probably not unreasonable to suggest that, if Red Bull isn’t winning the development race, it is at least keeping pace with McLaren in that field. Its latest upgrade delivered Red Bull’s first double podium of the season in Baku, with Max Verstappen missing victory by just 0.196s. Compared to where Verstappen and Isack Hadjar were in China or Japan, that is quite some progress.
There have been signs for a while. Since Red Bull’s Austria package was introduced, whenever Verstappen has finished a grand prix he has been on the podium. Despite two non-finishes, he has scored only five points fewer than Lando Norris over that period.
The first win of the 2026 season for Red Bull is still to come, of course. There are plenty of issues to sort out too, including mysterious car behaviours Verstappen has openly discussed.
Despite a lack of trophies, there have already been a couple of victories for Mekies personally this year.
Keeping Verstappen was the most obvious one. Yes, perhaps a few extra zeroes in a new contract helped. But this is also a driver who only a few months ago was openly discussing how long he even wanted to continue in Formula 1, rather than merely which team he wanted to drive for.
Mekies has secured Red Bull’s biggest asset for a little longer. Verstappen presumably wouldn’t have committed had he not believed Red Bull could return to winning regularly. Maintaining that belief is very much part of Mekies’ job.
Yet it's Hadjar’s Baku podium that might be the best illustration yet of Mekies’ approach. Hadjar didn’t merely return to his duties this weekend. He returned with the reassurance of a fresh Red Bull contract for 2027. When he landed on the ridiculously large red couch in Baku’s press conference room on Wednesday, he had plenty of pleasant things to discuss — first and foremost the fact that his future was already sorted.
After the race, Mekies acknowledged that announcing Hadjar before his comeback was intentional. Red Bull simply wanted to remove some of the pressure and show him how much it trusted him. That feels noteworthy for a driver occupying what has historically been Formula 1’s ultimate pressure-cooker seat.
Hadjar had been out injured. He has now himself admitted the injury was sustained while boxing. Red Bull could easily have waited to see how he returned before committing to him. Instead, the team effectively told him: we trust you. The seat is yours. You have already proved enough. Perhaps people really do perform better when they know they are valued.
Hadjar himself admitted he deliberately took things slowly in Baku. His priority initially was simply not to hit anything. Only later did he start taking risks, building confidence until he was properly pushing in qualifying. And then he produced arguably the best race of his F1 career.
It could have been different under the old Red Bull regime. Hadjar might instead have returned with questions hanging over his future after Liam Lawson’s decent run in his absence. There might have been public comments about the wisdom of injuring yourself while boxing. Perhaps Hadjar would have felt he needed to prove everything immediately.
That is speculation, of course. But plenty of drivers in that second Red Bull have fallen into precisely that spiral: an early mistake creates pressure, pressure creates another mistake, and suddenly everything becomes harder. Giving Hadjar the contract before Baku looks, in hindsight, like a brilliant move.
And speaking of Lawson, by the way...
Plenty has already been said about how different his second Red Bull stint looked compared to his first, and everyone is free to choose their preferred explanation. But you can’t help wondering whether the environment played a part. The circumstances weren’t entirely dissimilar. Lawson was again thrown into an unfamiliar car for a limited number of races. This time, though, he looked like a different driver.
Perhaps it is simply easier to get on with the job when you don’t feel the desperate need to prove everything in one race, one session or one lap — and when there is no prospect of a nasty Austrian boss calling you at 6am the following morning to inform you that you’re useless.
None of this means Mekies is a better leader than Horner or Marko. That would be ridiculous to state. With both of them in charge, Red Bull won almost everything there was to win. Mekies still has an enormous amount to do before he can claim even a fraction of their achievements.
But there is no single correct way to lead a Formula 1 team. And perhaps Baku offered another indication that we are beginning to understand what Mekies’ Red Bull looks like.
It is also worth remembering that, while his influence on the team is growing, Horner’s legacy hasn’t disappeared. Red Bull’s former boss probably had quite an enjoyable Saturday himself, watching the cars of his former team fly down Baku’s 2.2km straight faster than pretty much anything else.
Building Red Bull Powertrains in Milton Keynes was, after all, one of Horner’s biggest gambles. Now Mekies himself describes the resulting power unit as “fantastic”, while the FIA’s current system has effectively identified it as the benchmark - however peculiar that system might be.
Horner probably enjoyed browsing the news after the race too.
His name appeared in quotes from Fred Vasseur, who admitted Ferrari was “not working in perfect serenity” amid the constant speculation over his own future. As much as Vasseur tried to joke and laugh during his media session, Horner had clearly managed to annoy him with his recent interview with The Times - and annoying other F1 team bosses was always something Horner appeared to enjoy enormously.
And there could yet be an amusing twist to the Mekies-Horner story. The Ferrari team principal role is one Mekies himself would surely have coveted during his years at Maranello. He eventually left Ferrari without getting it and, via Racing Bulls, ended up in charge of Red Bull instead. Now Horner - the man whose old job Mekies ultimately inherited — is being linked with the Ferrari position Mekies never got. Perhaps the two haven't finished with each other yet.
It remains a pretty wild scenario to contemplate. But different times require different leaders.
Red Bull decided its next chapter needed a smiling Frenchman rather than an aggressive and political Englishman. It may still be that one day Ferrari decides it needs the opposite.
