Max Verstappen opened up about how Red Bull Racing is adjusting to life under new boss Laurent Mekies. The Dutch driver admitted it hasn’t been the smoothest transition with all the sudden changes over the past two weeks.
Mekies made his first appearance in the Red Bull pit lane during the Belgian Grand Prix Sprint after replacing Christian Horner, who was dismissed by team leadership. Despite the shake-up, Verstappen still managed to win at Spa-Francorchamps.
“I mean, it’s very difficult to, within two weeks, suddenly say a lot of things need to change out of the blue,” Verstappen told reporters.
He emphasized that building relationships takes time.
“It’s about starting the relationship and just understanding how everyone is operating. And then at one point, you know, you come to conclusions and maybe you want to change something.”
The four-time world champion believes these changes will evolve naturally in the coming months.
“This is something that will happen over the coming weeks, months. So it’s really early days, but so far, you know, he’s very keen and very motivated and that’s exactly what you want also.”
Verstappen seems happy with how things are going so far.
“I get on very well with him. It’s been a very good start.”
New Engineer Steps Up for Belgian Grand Prix
The changes didn’t stop at management. Verstappen also worked with a different race engineer during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend.
His regular engineer, Giampiero Lambiase, was away for personal reasons.
Simon Rennie stepped in to fill the Italian’s role, and Verstappen was impressed with how seamlessly the transition went.
“Simon has a lot of racing experience already. And of course, he’s been part of the team for a very long time,” Verstappen explained.
Though Rennie hasn’t been in a race engineer role recently, he hit the ground running.
“The last few years, he hasn’t been in a race engineer role, but he stepped in and was immediately on it. So again, very enjoyable to work with Simon.”
Despite all these behind-the-scenes changes, Verstappen’s performance on track hasn’t suffered. That’s pretty impressive considering how much a driver typically relies on consistency in their support team.
