Red Bull F1 boss weighs up junior team solution to problem

Max Verstappen, Laurent Mekies, generic, 2025 — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

Red Bull boss weighs up junior team solution to F1 problem

Red Bull are sat down in fourth in the constructors' championship

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Friday 8 August 2025 11:12

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has insisted that his new team cannot simply copy what Racing Bulls are doing to try and pull themselves out of their current F1 slump.

Mekies joined the Milton Keynes-based outfit as their team principal last month, after long-serving boss Christian Horner was axed from his position after 20 years.

The Frenchman had previously been the team principal of Red Bull junior team Racing Bulls since 2023, and so had already been able to develop good relationships with drivers Max Verstappen and especially Yuki Tsunoda.

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There has been a focus in recent months on how much two interconnected teams - like Red Bull and Racing Bulls - are allowed to share with each other, with McLaren CEO Zak Brown suggesting that FIA rules needed to change.

Both Racing Bulls drivers - Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar - are currently sat ahead of Red Bull star Tsunoda in the drivers' championship, while the team have either matched or bettered Red Bull's points tally at four of the last seven race weekends.

And it was put to Mekies by Sky Sports F1 during the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend the idea of Red Bull sharing some aspects of Racing Bulls' car in order to help them find more performance in their 2025 car.

"No, I think the question is fair, but there's a genesis of the car," the Frenchman explained. "Where the cars are coming from is too different for anyone to transfer anything from a car to another. It's what Formula 1 is today.

Laurent Mekies replaced Christian Horner at Red Bull

"You know, it's 10 independent teams all coming with their own ideas about where to develop the car, what difficulties they found along the way, which development paths they have ended up having due to that. And there is nothing you could take from a car to another. It's really down to how it was developed from early on."

Red Bull's struggles

Horner was axed by the team due to a huge drop-off in performance over the last 12 months, which has seen Red Bull slip from dominance over the sport to fourth place in the constructors' championship.

It's fair to say that the slide could have been a lot worse had they not had four-time champion Verstappen driving their RB21, with the Dutchman having claimed 187 of the team's 192 points so far in 2025.

While both championships are clearly gone for the team, they will need Tsunoda to start scoring regular points if they are to challenge for a top-three finish in the constructors' standings.

The Japanese racer has only managed to score seven points from 12 race weekends after gaining his own promotion from Racing Bulls back in March.

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