Shake-up in Formula 1: Red Bull fires Christian Horner and promotes Laurent Mekies – but who is the racing team’s new boss?
With the sudden dismissal of Christian Horner, Laurent Mekies has been catapulted to the top of Red Bull – and now faces the biggest challenge of his Formula 1 career to date.
Mekies, born on April 28, 1977, in Tours, France, is only the second team boss in the history of Red Bull Racing at the age of 48. The Austrian team, which entered Formula 1 in 2005, was shaped significantly by Christian Horner for two decades – until his abrupt departure on Wednesday, July 9, in the middle of the 2025 season.
Mekies is a trained aerodynamics engineer and has been involved in motorsport for over 25 years. His career began at Asiatech in Formula 3. In the early 2000s, he entered Formula 1 with the Arrows team before moving to Faenza to work as a race engineer with Minardi, where he worked with drivers such as Mark Webber, Justin Wilson, Zsolt Baumgartner, and Christijan Albers.
Formula 1, then FIA, then back to Formula 1
After Red Bull took over the small Italian team in 2006 and renamed it Toro Rosso, Mekies was promoted to chief engineer, a position he held for almost a decade.
In 2014, he left operational racing but remained loyal to Formula 1 and moved to the FIA, the world governing body of motor sport. There, he initially took on the role of safety director before becoming deputy race director. In this role, he was instrumental in developing new regulations and, among other things, pushed for the introduction of the halo head protection system, which is now an indispensable safety feature in Formula racing.
After three years with the FIA, he returned to the track – this time in red: Ferrari brought Mekies on board first as head of track operations, then as sporting director and finally as deputy team principal. His move to Maranello caused quite a stir at the time, as the transition from the FIA to Ferrari was viewed critically by some rival teams.
The final step in his career
Mekies had only one step left to take: having proven himself not only as an accomplished engineer but also as a team leader, he was appointed team principal of Red Bull’s sister team, now operating under the name Racing Bulls, at the beginning of 2024. Back in Faenza, where his Formula 1 career had once taken off, he succeeded long-time team boss Franz Tost.
“I think he has a very, very good understanding of the business, having started as an engineer and then worked at the FIA,” said Frederic Vasseur on Mekies’ departure from Ferrari. “And for a position like this, you need someone with a complete understanding of the entire company.”
His work at the helm of the Italian team did not go unnoticed – in sporting terms, of course, despite the constant driver merry-go-round resulting from Red Bull’s indecision over who to pair with Verstappen. But Mekies also proved that he has mastered the wide range of tasks required to lead a modern Formula 1 team.
A summary of his career
Now, as Horner’s successor at Red Bull, Mekies faces what is probably the biggest test of his professional life. The Red Bull project has long since become more than just a normal Formula 1 team: A new wind tunnel is under construction, the team’s first in-house engine is being developed in collaboration with Ford, and most recently, the team has been rocked by internal power struggles that have even called Verstappen’s future into question. Only time will tell whether the legacy of the Horner era will turn to gold or dust.
Career overview Laurent Mekies:
2001-2003: Arrows
2003-2005: Minardi
2006-2014: Toro Rosso
2014-2017: FIA
2018-2023: Ferrari
2024-2025: Racing Bulls
Since 2025: Red Bull Racing
