Laurent Mekies has the big chair at Red Bull. He just doesn’t have a board seat.
Fresh filings at the UK’s Companies House confirm the post-Horner reset in Milton Keynes: the long-time boss is out of his operational roles and off the boards, replaced across Red Bull’s UK entities by Red Bull GmbH’s head of HR, Stefan Salzer, and legal chief Alistair Rew. Helmut Marko remains in place where he was before. Mekies, however—the new CEO and team principal—hasn’t been added as a director anywhere in the F1 group.
The updated director line-ups:
– Red Bull Technology Ltd (holding company): Stefan Salzer, Alistair Rew
– Red Bull Racing: Helmut Marko, Stefan Salzer
– Red Bull Powertrains: Helmut Marko, Alistair Rew
– Red Bull Advanced Technologies: Helmut Marko, Alistair Rew
– Red Bull Advanced Services: Helmut Marko, Alistair Rew
On paper, that’s two non-executive figures (Marko and Salzer/Rew) overseeing the shop, with the man running the team left as an employee rather than a director. It’s a deliberate look—more “board oversight and execution,” less “one man at the center of everything.”
If it feels unusual, it is and it isn’t. Plenty of UK-based F1 outfits split power this way. McLaren’s Zak Brown sits on the board; Andrea Stella doesn’t. At Mercedes, Toto Wolff is a director—he’s also a co-owner. Alpine’s CEO Philippe Krief is on the board. Williams’ James Vowles is not. Aston Martin’s Andy Cowell is a director of a subsidiary, not the F1 team itself. Haas hasn’t put its team principals on the board either. What is mildly odd is a CEO not being a director—especially at a team of Red Bull’s scale.
There’s precedent inside Milton Keynes, though. Christian Horner didn’t get a directorship at Red Bull Racing until 2007, two years after becoming team boss, and only later joined the holding company board. Red Bull has effectively reverted to that earlier template: non-executive supervision from GmbH and Marko, with the team boss executing the plan.
A few footnotes worth flagging:
– Mekies is still listed as a director of the UK branch of Racing Bulls (Faenza-based), alongside CEO Peter Bayer—a likely paperwork lag rather than a dual-hatted reality.
– Don’t read too much into budget-cap mechanics here. Director status doesn’t automatically change pay. The top three earners per reporting group sit outside the cap regardless, and Horner’s compensation may still occupy one of those slots until his employment status fully resolves.
Insiders describe the shift as cultural as much as structural: back to “the can, not the man.” Whether Mekies earns a board seat after he beds in—like Horner once did—will be one to watch. For now, the power lies with the non-execs, the filings, and a CEO running the show without his name on the letterhead upstairs.
