Steiner to Red Bull: ease the heat on Mekies as the rebuild starts
The din around Milton Keynes hasn’t faded so much as shifted tone. With Christian Horner out and Laurent Mekies now wearing the team boss and CEO badges, Red Bull’s next phase is underway — and those inside the paddock are urging patience.
Two days after the British Grand Prix, Red Bull GmbH moved Horner aside and installed Mekies, a hire originally shepherded into the organisation at the end of 2023. The boardroom reshuffle kept going: Horner has since been removed as a director across Red Bull Racing, Red Bull Powertrains, Red Bull Advanced Technologies, Red Bull Advanced Services and the Red Bull Technology holding company. Notably, Mekies hasn’t been placed on those boards; Red Bull’s HR chief Stefan Salzer has stepped in as a director at the F1 team and the holding company.
Guenther Steiner, who knows what it’s like to be shown the door after a long run in charge, understands why the change happened — and why Mekies shouldn’t be expected to conjure miracles on day one.
“The unrest within the team was nothing new. It had been building up for over a year and a half,” Steiner said, pointing to a dip in performance and the need to keep Max Verstappen content. “That’s why Red Bull wants to reorganise.”
Verstappen has since publicly committed to Red Bull into the 2026 season under the new ruleset, but the sport’s reset — and the team’s first in-house power unit under the Red Bull Powertrains-Ford banner — means every result will be read for what it says about 2027 and beyond.
In the meantime, Mekies inherits a car, the RB21, that’s lost some of its bite and a structure that needs stitching back together. “I just hope they don’t put too much pressure on Laurent Mekies. He’s not a magician,” Steiner cautioned. “It can take years [to rebuild]. Good people have left and spread out to other teams. Now he has to try to attract new top talent, and that’s difficult. What’s more, Red Bull is building its own engine with Ford. That’s a huge project.” His forecast for 2026: among the front-runners, but short of the absolute benchmark.
Mekies isn’t blinking. “We don’t underestimate what is ahead of us,” he said after Hungary. “A top team has a target to win… If you walk into the factory, you will find people that are only there to win. Resilience is important in this sport… we very well know that we will make steps, thanks to talent like that. So no, it is not overwhelming.”
The message, then: steady hands, firm jaw. Red Bull has chosen disruption to chase calm. Mekies’ task is to turn that gamble into momentum — and that takes more than one winter.
