Laurent Mekies

E, e até fa-falaste do Andrea Stella, já acho, já ouve aquela boca, o que é que o GP vai fazer na McLaren, não é? Diz que vai substituir o Andrea Stella.

Oficialmente não, vai ser o Andrew Wolf qualquer coisa, mas, é, já não lembro se foi o Mekies ou quem é que falou que, que era uma proposta irrecusável que ia para o lugar do Stella, basicamente.

É, o GP não é propriamente o, o estrategista, não é? É, é a equipe é liderada pela Anne Smith.

É, mas eu acho que a McLaren devia ir buscar uns bons estrategistas.

It is important.

So, too, we'll talk about Laurent Mekies extending his contract to two, through to 2031, what that means, again, in tandem with one maximinimus.

Are they setting up the next phase of the bulls that are read properly? And we'll have to talk about one Frederic Vasseur because the Italian media are reporting that this dude's tenure is fragile.

I'm telling you, I'm not sure that Frederic Vasseur will make it out of 2026 alive, and when, when I say alive, of course, I mean as team principal of Scuderia Ferrari.

Had to be done T3N.

We got something coming, and your boy needed to sort himself out.

Oh, and by the way, have you seen this? Laurent Mekies signs for an additional, extends his contract.

It is interesting, chat, the timing of this.

Moving to sport.

In the F1, Red Bull has extended team pr-principal Laurent Mekies' contract until the end of twenty-thirty-one.

The move follows recent contract extensions for drivers Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar as Red Bull look to build on back-to-back wins in Malaysia and Singapore.

And in the Rugby League, Australia edged New Zealand twenty-four to twenty-two to kick off their Rugby League World Cup defense.

Well, having different drivers jumping into that car, I think, has finally given us our answer that, yes, indeed, this car is good.

And given that team boss Laurent Mekies really rates the amount of technical feedback that Hajar has been able to give, as well as his integration with the engineering department, and Max we already know is great in that field as well, it stands to reason why Laurent wants to keep this pairing for as long as possible.

And the team might have found themselves with something that they had been lacking since 2023, a very usable and very competitive combined driver lineup.

Now, this is not me bagging on Checo or anything like that, because it became very clear from 2023 and 2024 that Sergio's place within the team was remarkably tainted and remarkably one-sided, not nearly as compatible as it was during his first two years of tenure with the team.

And in this case it has been Mercedes and Antonelli, not that Verstappen is not making a fight of it.

He's really showing that this Red Bull team under Laurent Mekies is, uh, sort of, uh, completely revitalized and with best days ahead.

Stacked front.

Yeah.

So until Madrid sucks less as a circuit and as a race, Max has won all the races that matter on all the circuits that matter.

Laurent Mekies, the team principal, did confirm after the race that, yes, the Red Bull is competitive right now.

We still have six very challenging races to go, and Red Bull may not maintain this dominance based on other teams bringing upgrades towards the end of the year.

Red Bull will probably still be very good, but we don't know necessarily how dominant they're going to be because Red Bull probably won't be bringing any upgrades through the end of the season, and if they are, they probably are going to be very minor.

Off the back of that first race victory of the year then, which, which seems mad anyway, but also Jolyon, I just wonder on, on Red Bull as well and, and about this kind of changing of, of the tide perhaps.

Are we seeing the fruits of, you know, Laurent Mekies being at, at the, the helm now and, and bringing in new people and obviously both Verstappen and Haug are re-signed.

This is now the, the next, the next iteration of Red Bull under him.

Are we seeing that play out now?

I think w- I think we are, and I, I can't tell you how impressive it is.

The, l- uh, yeah, Laurent Mekies has come in as of just over a year ago.

The first thing that happened when he came in was Verstappen put together a late title tilt towards the championship last year.

Now, even Laurent was saying, "Hey guys, [laughs] I'd love to take the credit, but this is really not me.