Jos Verstappen is pleased to report that calm has returned to his son Max’s team. Over the past months the former Formula 1 driver increasingly raised questions about Red Bull. In particular, during the scandal surrounding Christian Horner he unleashed strong criticism of the Austrian outfit. There has since been a noticeable change in the team’s atmosphere, partly down to team principal Laurent Mekies, and Verstappen senior has noticed.
Although Red Bull, based on the recent test weeks, is not being viewed as the outright favourite, Jos Verstappen is cautiously optimistic about developments in Milton Keynes. He also finds it difficult at such an early stage to make definitive calls on the relative pecking order. “You never really know what the actual pace is,” he told Belgian broadcaster RTBF. “During tests you can’t see what’s happening behind the scenes, but to be honest I’m quite pleased with what I’ve seen.”
Laurent Mekies takes a starring role
According to insiders, Mercedes and Ferrari emerged as the strongest packages, but Red Bull also left a solid impression. The standout detail was the reliability of the brand-new power unit. This year the team parted ways with the familiar Honda powerplant and developed its own unit in partnership with Ford, finally realising a long-held dream of the late team founder Dietrich Mateschitz. “My first impression is that above all the engine is strong and reliable,” Jos Verstappen said. “Small problems always occur, that’s normal. There are always things you can improve in the set-up, but right now the car seems to be functioning excellently. A lot of mileage has been put in and that’s encouraging.”
He finished by praising the atmosphere inside the team. Back when Christian Horner was in charge he compared Red Bull to ‘a kindergarten’ and said he was ‘completely done’ with the British team principal. His successor, the Frenchman Laurent Mekies, receives praise from Verstappen. “The team is functioning very well,” he said. “There are many newcomers, many new faces, but the atmosphere is excellent. The calm has — thankfully — returned and that has a positive effect on the whole team.” On Mekies’s role he added: “He has excellent social skills and knows how to read people. Besides, he’s simply a great guy.”
