
Mekis: The team has a fighting spirit, and Max sets the tone.
Practice at Zandvoort is over, and Max Verstappen finished the final, third practice session with the fifth fastest time, Yuki Tsunoda with 12th. Laurent Mekies has been in charge of Red Bull Racing for just over a month and a half and told Sky Sports how things are going at this stage of the season.
Laurent Mekies: "The August break was needed for us to analyse everything that happened to the team in the four weeks leading up to it. But I'm pleased to see that everyone returned to the Milton Keynes base refreshed, full of energy, and now we're hard at work on track.
The Budapest round was our worst in terms of results, although we tried many different approaches to try to change the situation for the better, but it seems that few things worked back then. I suppose the key question was: was what happened then a one-off, or the start of something more serious?
Now we understand that it was primarily related to how we structured our work on track. Zandvoort can be compared to Budapest in terms of characteristics, but even here we can't catch McLaren. Still, we are trying to ensure that after their two cars our RB21 is the third quickest. We are competing with Mercedes and Ferrari and, possibly, with a few drivers from other teams.
Of course, Max is still giving his all; he is a very experienced professional and knows exactly what works and what doesn't. And although the team is having one of its poorer seasons, the same fighting spirit prevails at the factory, and that, of course, is set by Max.
Speaking of Yuki, he finished the end of last season very well and started this one fairly well, although it's clear that when he moved to Red Bull Racing he encountered difficulties. But we approach each race on its own, and in Spa he managed to take a step forward. Here he is still three or four tenths slower than Max, so we'll see how he progresses.
But, in my view, he is gradually progressing step by step. There are ten races to go, and we are trying to give Yuki every possible support and see encouraging signs.
The team, like everyone else, has finished upgrading the car and has already switched focus to preparing for 2026, but nevertheless it is very important for us to use the remaining races to gather as much information as possible and understand why our season is not going the way we expected. In this situation, during the weekends we still have the opportunity to try different approaches and run various experiments aimed at helping both the team and our drivers."

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Mekis: The team has a fighting spirit, and Max sets the tone.
Laurent Mekies has been in charge of the Red Bull Racing team for just over one and a half months and spoke to Sky Sports about how things are going at this stage of the season...