Max Verstappen has identified how Laurent Mekies’ engineering background has inspired Red Bull’s revival with its crushing Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix success.
The World Champion took a sensational third victory of the year at Monza on Sunday, having started from pole position.
Verstappen’s dominance was underlined by setting the fastest ever average speed lap in F1 history, followed by his win becoming the fastest ever F1 race in history.
It was Verstappen’s first Grand Prix win since May, and the first for Mekies since taking over from Christian Horner at the helm of the Milton Keynes-based squad.
A key difference between Mekies and Horner is the Frenchman’s wealth of experience in engineering, having worked for various other teams, including Ferrari, in such capacities.
It has also been noted that the team’s senior advisor, Helmut Marko, and Technical Director Pierre Wache have revealed a pivot in mentality, in which they are listening to Verstappen’s feedback about the car more than they were previously.
“The difference is that the preparation of a weekend is a different one now,” Marko said.
“Laurent is an excellent engineer, so now the idea is more to take whatever the simulation shows us, but mix that with the experience that Max has and with the experience that our racing engineers have.
“That’s how we want to make a car that is more predictable and drivable.
“This is the product of that. Basically, it’s the same product as we had before, just some upgrades were coming and they are working.
“But 20 seconds on McLaren, I wouldn’t have predicted that.”
Marko also intimated that there has been a culture shift since Mekies took charge, saying: “The whole technical team is more open now and they discuss things.
“They are not blindly taking what the simulation says.”
Verstappen: ‘Common-sense’ Mekies helping Red Bull take steps forward
But the Dutchman seemed to pin the strides in performance the team made at Monza more onto Mekies input more than anything else.
“Up until now we’ve had a lot of races where we were just shooting left and right a little bit with the set-up of the car,” Verstappen told media including Motorsport Week.
“Quite extreme changes, which shows that we were not in control. We were not fully understanding what to do.
“With Laurent having an engineering background, he’s asking the right questions to the engineers – common-sense questions – so I think that works really well.
“Plus, you try to understand from the things that you have tried, that at one point some things give you a bit of an idea of a direction, and that’s what we kept on working on.
“I definitely felt that in Zandvoort already we took a step that seemed to work quite well, and then here another step which felt again a little bit better.”
Mekies was asked about what level of contributions he has made in an engineering side, but denied any specific involvement and refused to take any credit.
“The answer is a very easy one. The level of contribution is zero. And I’m not joking either. It’s 1,500 people working on making that car faster,” the Frenchman told media including Motorsport Week.
“So these are the addition of these talents that make the car faster, that make the hundreds and make the thousands.
“And make the set of options available and make the new components available. So the short answer is zero.”
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