This year’s World Championship duel was once again decided in the final race, but the atmosphere was friendlier than in 2021 – and the Red Bull team boss had something to do with that.
As in the 2021 season, when Max Verstappen narrowly beat Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton in the controversial final race in Abu Dhabi, the world championship title was only decided in the last race this season. But the atmosphere in the paddock was completely different from four years ago.
At that time, the relationship between Red Bull and Mercedes was hostile at times, even if Max Verstappen did not want to share this assessment unreservedly. “Well, hostile, hostile… Nobody beat each other up, did they?” grinned the four-time world champion during his Dutch media round in Abu Dhabi.
“I didn’t perceive it as hostile. Hostile is a pretty extreme word. It was just very competitive. And the fact that the two teams didn’t like each other at that point is another story. But hostile is something else.”
Regardless, Christian Horner and Toto Wolff engaged in numerous political exchanges at the time. This happened much less frequently in the duel with McLaren, even though there were still a few references to flexible wings and tire water at the end of last year and the beginning of this season, to which Zak Brown responded with a special water bottle.
Red Bull team boss: “We respect the competition”
Since the summer, this polemic has essentially disappeared. This was also evident at the press conference on Friday before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where McLaren boss Brown and the new Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies appeared together.
Despite the title-deciding weekend, the atmosphere was remarkably friendly. Another indication of the change in tone was the so-called “tape gate,” after which Mekies quickly explained that Red Bull would refrain from removing Norris’ tape from the pit wall in the future.
The change seems to be at least partly attributable to Mekies, even if he himself does not want to take credit for it. “I don’t know if you can call it that [that Red Bull was at the limit] or not,” says the Frenchman. “I think we fought a very hard battle, but a fair and clean one.”
“That’s how we want to race,” he clarified. “We push to the limit, but we respect our competitors. When it comes to sporting fairness and respect for our competitors, we believe we can do both: drive at the limit and respect our competitors at the same time.”
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“Sport is a battle of the giants, and we are right in the middle of it and respect our competitors.” However, according to Mekies, it’s not just about dealing with rivals. The new approach also brings internal benefits. The basic idea is to allow less distraction and less noise than before.
“Let me put it this way: it’s an incredibly competitive environment, and we believe that to be competitive here, you also have to enjoy what you do,” emphasizes the successor to former team boss Horner. “We work hard, we party hard—that’s the Red Bull spirit.”
“All we’ve done is make sure that we as a group can focus on pure racing and not get too distracted by the noise around us. And that we do what we love at our core: making these cars faster on the track.”
Fewer verbal exchanges in the future?
“That’s basically it,” says the team boss. “And to focus on what we love, to push harder than anyone else and try to enjoy it at the same time.” A statement that fits well with his engineering background. Mekies takes a systematic approach and wants to focus consistently on those factors that make the car faster. Political games don’t necessarily fit into this concept, which is why they now seem to play a lesser role at Red Bull than they used to. A trend that is not limited to Red Bull.
As more and more engineers take on the role of team principal, public polemics seem to be decreasing overall. Toto Wolff joked in Zandvoort that Formula 1 still needs “assholes” as team principals for entertainment, but the verbal exchanges were significantly less prevalent in the second half of the 2025 season than in previous years.
