Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff is pleased with Laurent Mekies’ work and reveals what the team had hoped for following Christian Horner’s departure
Are these comments a slight dig at former team principal Christian Horner? Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff spoke to Sky about Laurent Mekies’ current work at Red Bull – and in doing so made a comment that could certainly be interpreted as a criticism of Horner.
Mekies has been team principal at Red Bull for just over a year, and the team appears to be very satisfied with the Frenchman’s work. Mekies took over the job in the summer of 2025 “during a difficult period”, Mintzlaff recalled during the interview.
Red Bull had just parted ways with Horner after more than 20 years. “We knew, of course, that he’d done a great job at Racing Bulls, that he’s a good leader. He certainly has the technical understanding,” says Mintzlaff of Mekies.
However, the Frenchman is “also someone who can empower people, who leads people, who can unite them behind him. Once we’d made the change, it was important to us that we became a united team again,” emphasises Mintzlaff.
An intriguing statement, in which Mintzlaff admits that the team had, in fact, ceased to be a united whole under Horner. The “Horner affair” had been weighing on the team since the start of the 2024 season – and was ultimately a decisive factor in the split.
Turnaround achieved under Mekies
Under Mekies, therefore, the aim was “to look ahead, to simply place our trust in the people we have here – who, after all, have built a world championship-winning car in recent years – and to believe in ourselves again”.
“And that’s where Laurent is the expert,” praises Mintzlaff, adding: “On top of that, of course, we said we wanted to divide things up a bit. Formula 1 is getting bigger and bigger. And having one person responsible for everything – the commercial side and the racing side – that didn’t really sit well with us anymore.”
This can also be interpreted as a criticism of his predecessor and “autocrat” Horner, even though Mintzlaff does not explicitly mention his name. “That’s why we decided to make a change here as well,” he explains.
Under Mekies, Red Bull staged a strong sporting finish in the second half of the 2025 season, which almost secured Max Verstappen the world championship title. In the end, the Dutchman finished as runner-up, just two points behind Lando Norris.
In 2026, after a difficult start to the new era of regulations, the Bulls have now got back on track. Verstappen recently secured two consecutive Grand Prix victories in Malaysia and Singapore.