Karun Chandhok: Likeable Laurent Mekies can steady the red Bull ship

It’s been a busy month in the Formula 1 world with races coming thick and fast and a huge celebration of 75 years of the F1 World Championship at Goodwood’s Festival of Speed. There’s no doubt that the biggest news story has been the sacking of Christian Horner just after the British Grand Prix. The news came as a bit of a shock and has created more questions than answers. Why now? What’s the real reason behind it? What does it mean for Max’s future? Who will lead the team in the long term?

Christian has become something of a pantomime villain in the paddock and a master politician. But deep down he’s still a racer who led the team to a total of 14 world championships in 20 years, which is a remarkable record. There are several things around the alleged inappropriate behaviour scandal that unfolded around Bahrain 2024 which still remain unanswered of course. Christian himself has always claimed innocence and the internal enquiry cleared him of any wrongdoing, but given the fact that it was an internal procedure, the world at large still remain outside the opaque wall.

What is certain is that from that weekend onwards, there was a fairly public split of the whole Red Bull camp. The whispers around the paddock suggested that the Austrian arm including their long term adviser Dr Helmut Marko were on one side, seemingly backed by the Verstappens, while Christian was on another side being supported by the Thai shareholder Chalerm Yoovidhya.

“Nobody expected Christian’s sacking to happen in the manner it did”

Horner’s position within the team appeared shaky in the immediate aftermath of the Bahrain weekend but over the next few months he seemed to ride out the storm and emerge battered and bruised but still in charge. Clearly there was a lot going on behind closed doors in recent weeks and we heard a few noises in the paddock in Austria that there was pressure ramping up for Christian to be removed. That was Red Bull’s home race of course and just 10 days before his sacking, but to be honest nobody expected it to happen mid-season in as abrupt and brutal manner as it did.

It may take months, or maybe years, to get the full story of what truly unfolded within the walls at Red Bull, so it’s not really fair to try and speculate on things. What is fact is that between Rob Marshall, Adrian Newey, Jonathan Wheatley, Will Courtenay and Christian, that Milton Keynes outfit are missing several heavy hitters who have been around for a lot of the glory years.

Laurent Mekies has been shifted over from Racing Bulls, but it feels like there will be further reorganisation of the top management of the RBR team and Red Bull Powertrains to come with so many recent changes. I like Laurent. He’s a sensible, pragmatic and experienced professional who will help to steady the ship. There’s a massive wave of change coming to the team in 2026 as they become only the third team on the grid to have a complete car built in-house under the new powertrain regulations. It’s a path that Christian was instrumental in setting them down and the pressure on RBPT to get it right will be immense. Mekies is in a slightly awkward position as he has inherited this seismic change for the organisation and at this point he’s just got to hope that it works out well relative to the opposition.

Back on the track, the title battle between the McLaren drivers is hotting up. As I write, just before the Belgian GP, Lando Norris has taken two wins on the trot after a nightmare in Montreal. His pole position lap in Austria was superb and the best of his career. To be half a second ahead of the field on the shortest lap time of the season was seriously impressive but in the race Oscar was a match for him. Piastri had the upper hand at Silverstone but a controversial 10sec penalty cost him the win. I think he was in the wrong to decelerate so rapidly in those conditions, but I would have expected a 5sec penalty.

McLaren is doing a great job keeping the battle fair and equal between the drivers and it all seems friendly at the moment. It’s going to be brilliant to watch the contest unfold as we roll through the rest of the season.