Photo: Race Pictures

Threat or revelation? Mekies: Red Bull 'still hunting for answers'

10:29, 25 Sep

Updated: 11:09, 25 Sep

byOlly Darcy

Despite Red Bull's return to the front of the grid, team principal Laurent Mekies is still "taking it step-by-step", searching for more answers.

Max Verstappen in action in Baku, going on to take a second win in as many races | Photo: Race Pictures

We were killed by McLaren two races ago in Zandvoort. The gap was very significant [at those types of tracks].

- Laurent Mekies on the gap to McLaren at some remaining Grand Prix tracks

Updates were brought by the Austrian team to the Italian Grand Prix, just the fourth Grand Prix weekend Mekies had at the helm of Red Bull after replacing Christian Horner as team principal and CEO.

Those changes made by the Frenchman and Red Bull have made a significant difference in the pace and runing of the RB21, which has seen Max Verstappen take back-to-back wins at Monza and at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

"I think we probably feel today that some of the good stuff we have seen in Monza, we found here again, certainly in the slow speed corners of Baku," the team boss stated.

"There are only slow-speed corners here. So it's very low downforce, but only slow-speed corners, and it worked very well for us, which is a different equation to Monza, so that's the good news. The common point is very, very low downforce.

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"You go to Singapore, you move equations a bit. You keep the slow-speed corners, but you go to maximum downforce. We have been struggling quite a lot, like in Budapest, and before Budapest. Singapore is also a much hotter track compared to that, and we know how sensitive, not only us, but the whole field is to this aspect.

"So we take it step by step. We take the challenge of Singapore. It's a track that has been challenging for the team for many, many years, and in the context of what we are trying to see, it's very, very important to see what suddenly doesn't work there anymore or whatever."

Mekies holding out on title-winning hope

Despite the impressive return to form that Red Bull and Verstappen have had that have brought the four-time world champion back into the title discussion, Mekies knows there are yet more tracks that could cause his team some issues, along with Singapore/

"After trying to take it to the next step, we will be back at tracks with medium speed corners, where we were killed by McLaren two races ago in Zandvoort. The gap was very significant.

"Also in Spa, we left Spa thinking that they were half a second faster than us, even though Max won the sprint. So that's the next set of answers we will be chasing," concluded the Frenchman.

Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner also believes that Red Bull may struggle at other tracks for the rest of 2025, saying, "I don't think Max will win a lot more races this year."

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