Red Bull refuses to celebrate major recovery as Laurent Mekies sets clear target
Simply making progress isn't enough for Red Bull, as Laurent Mekies has said only victories will bring satisfaction.
Red Bull may have made significant inroads into its deficit to the front since the start of the season, but Laurent Mekies says his team can’t be satisfied.
The Milton Keynes-based squad started the year over a second off the pace of the frontrunners, but now has become a more consistent podium contender.
Laurent Mekies says Red Bull will not be satisfied until it wins again
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Of the four frontrunning teams, Red Bull appeared to be the fourth-quickest at the Hungarian Grand Prix, with neither Max Verstappen nor Isack Hadjar happy with the balance and feel of the car.
Indeed, Verstappen was particularly unhappy after spinning off late in qualifying, having spoken about his entire car “degrading” through the weekend as the car’s aero performance slipped away in a way the team didn’t quite understand.
But, on Sunday, a typically spirited performance from Verstappen salvaged a strong result as the Dutch driver finished second, capitalising on a scruffy race from Ferrari and the retirement of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
On pace, Red Bull has never had the quickest package on any given weekend, with outright victory still a step too far for the team, regardless of how well it executes in terms of operations and strategy.
But there have been signs of an “upward trend”, to use Verstappen’s words, despite the confusion created by the inconsistent aero performance, with Red Bull having closed down a significant pace deficit through the first half of the year, although the Dutch driver was as pragmatic as ever after taking to the podium in Budapest.
“Tough. In general, it’s been very tough,” he said of the first half of the season.
“Some good moments, some bright, shining moments, I guess, but overall, tough. So, I think we need to try and be more solid, a bit more all-round, to have more straightforward weekends. Plus, we need to find more performance.
“I mean, it’s as simple as that at the end of the day. Then, besides finding more performance, just not having the issues as well with the current package, let’s say, that we have.”
At the start of the season, team boss Laurent Mekies estimated the gap to the front to be over a second, with the upgrade package introduced in Miami halving this, while the Austria package has sliced another couple of tenths out.
While the car’s behaviour continues to be a headache for Red Bull, the upgrades paying off in terms of pace does appear to suggest the team is broadly on the right path, but Mekies says there can be no satisfaction taken from this until regular victories are achievable again.
“We don’t sign for anything else other than winning races,” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com, after Verstappen’s podium finish in Budapest.
“I have to take the opportunity again to say, ‘well done’ to our people on chassis side, PU [power unit] side, because turning around… starting from 1.2 seconds, finishing three tenths, half the season in with this level of competition.
“You [media] have pointed out where we started, and I think we know where we started and why we started there. When we put things in perspective with the late push of last year and with the PU adventures, I have to say, everyone PU side, chassis side, some lap time progressions have been brought through updates.
“Some other lap time progressions have been brought through a lot of people in the background; our 2,000 people have been working to bring a little bit more to every single area.
“Some of them you never hear about, but it put us back in the positions where we are now fighting every race for the podium.
“Don’t count on me to say that we are satisfied, because we are not. We will not be satisfied until we go back to having a race car that has the pace to win on merit.”
The Budapest result may not have reflected the true performance level of the car, but Mekies said he believes there wasn’t any other driver, aside from race winner Norris, that clearly had the measure of Verstappen’s performance.
“I think it’s fair to say that only Lando was clearly faster than Max, and I think everyone else he could have matched or beaten, so I guess it’s positive because it means we have margin to improve with the current package,” he said.
“We’ll try to see why we are so much on the edge of car balance, corner balance, car performing, car not performing, because it’s been hard work for the drivers but also the team in these last few races to keep the car in its window.
“I think we never managed to give Max and Isack a car they could push with. For example, if I look back to driver feedback in Spa or in Austria, they would probably have said that the car was pretty much ballpark to how it should feel and to what it allows them to do.
“That was never the case this weekend, and certainly worse on Friday and Saturday compared to [Sunday], but still I have to say that it probably was not giving a very good feeling to the drivers.”
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Finding greater consistency in giving the drivers a car they can enjoy the balance of, such as the Belgian Grand Prix, will be key to unlocking greater performances in the second half of the year, Mekies believes.
“Our car has been very sensitive to a number of small factors since race one, and we have suffered a lot in the first part of the season as well,” he said.
“It’s enough that, if you pick up a bit of damage, let it be on gravel, on the kerbs, you get a different wind direction, and everything is a little bit on the edge in terms of performance.
“Not only do you probably pay a price for lap time, but it also removes the driver’s confidence. It’s not a new topic, but it’s something where probably we have more potential to extract.
“Nonetheless, because it’s Max, because it’s Isack, they have very often managed to extract the performance anyway.
“But, on the tracks where we have managed to [give them a good balance], we have seen an improved performance. I think it’s about consistency of the delivery of the performance, and it’s been a topic for us this season, and it’s probably where some of the potential improvement is in the second part of the year.”
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