Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has explained how he will endeavour to retain Max Verstappen at the team, saying that keeping his “magic” on a Formula 1 track is crucial.
The Frenchman steps into Christian Horner’s shoes at a tumultuous time, with the team, by its own standards, struggling this season.
And above all, with speculation having been rife about Verstappen’s future through hotly rumoured talks with Mercedes, Mekies is currently in an unenviable position.
He has indicated that ensuring Verstappen stays with the Milton Keynes-based squad is a top priority, telling F1.com ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix that competitive machinery is naturally what it is required for this.
“The truth is Red Bull is hugely committed to Max,” Mekies said. “And the way we can be hugely committed to Max is by giving him the best possible car.
“And giving him the best possible car is what every single person in the company wants more than anything else.
“So that’s where the effort is made really. And the rest will be a consequence. But of course, Max is central to the project and he’s key to the project and we need his magic at the racetrack.
“He has been with the team for a very long time and he has huge inputs in helping us driving the next competitive edge that we will need to build.”
Red Bull ‘has everything’ to give Verstappen a winning car again
Mekies is confident that Red Bull has all the attributes and personnel to give Verstappen a car that will regularly compete for wins again.
“I think the team has everything to do that,” he said. “It has the means. It has the spirit.
“And more importantly, it has the talents. So in short, yeah, I think we have everything to be able to give that to our drivers.”
Mekies is only too aware of what next year’s challenges will be, given it enters a new era with its powertrains division working together with Ford, making its return to F1 after over 20 years.
But he is confident that its experience in F1 will help see it through, as well as the staff’s hunger for success being another driving factor.
“I think Red Bull has been in the sport for so long,” he says. “They know exactly how the sport is working and they know what you can expect short term, what you can expect medium term, what you can expect long term.
“We have these unbelievable challenges ahead with sport trains that will mix together with the 2026 regulation challenge.
“So you don’t need to explain these sort of things to the management. They are completely conscious of those dynamics.
“You have the fire at every level of the company in terms of how aggressively and the level of aggressions you want to put in every single level of the company to be able to give that fight for the win, for the championships, a big try.”
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