Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has defended the squad’s willingness to experiment with set-up choices, insisting that even moments of disagreement with Max Verstappen are essential to the team’s development push in Formula 1.
The Milton Keynes-based outfit at the Canadian Grand Prix last weekend under pressure to prove that recent upgrades had genuinely moved the team forward.
While Verstappen’s sixth-place qualifying effort at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve appeared to reinforce concerns about Red Bull’s competitiveness, Sunday’s race told a more encouraging story as the Dutchman recovered to secure the outfit’s first podium of the season.
Even so, Verstappen was cautious about reading too much into the result.
“To be honest, I was feeling better in Miami with the car,” Verstappen said. “So I’m a little bit surprised with being on the podium here. But you also have to look at it with George retiring, and with the McLarens making a mess of the strategy.”
Mekies, however, believes the weekend underlined that Red Bull’s recent upgrades are beginning to deliver meaningful gains.
“The big picture is that we have at the very least confirmed the Miami step. I think we've done a bit more than the Miami step, in the way that I think we have managed to take a bit of performance away from the top guys,” the Frenchman said, quoted by Motorsport.com.
Experimentation still central to Red Bull’s approach
The Montreal weekend also highlighted the tension that can emerge when driver instincts and engineering decisions point in different directions.
After qualifying, Verstappen revealed that he had reservations about the set-up route Red Bull chose, suggesting he ultimately accepted the direction partly so the team could experience the shortcomings firsthand.
“I’ve pointed it out so many times already, but sometimes you just have to let them feel for themselves that it doesn’t work,” Verstappen said.
Mekies acknowledged that such scenarios are inevitable for a team still trying to unlock the full potential of the current generation of Formula 1 machinery.
“We take risks every time we don't feel that we are at the right balance or at the right gap to the competition,” Mekies said. “And when you take risks like that, you do explore set-up directions.”
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The Frenchman stressed that Red Bull has no intention of becoming conservative in its development philosophy, particularly so early in the rules cycle.
“It's only the beginning of the year, and it’s the beginning with this generation of cars. We are going to try things with our drivers to unlock something, even if it's costing us something,” he explained.
“And then you learn. You learn for the qualifying condition and you learn for the race condition. There has been a lot of learning this weekend. How far were we from the ultimate potential of the car? Nobody really knows.”
‘I told you’ moments part of the process
Despite Verstappen’s public frustration, Mekies rejected any suggestion that the four-time world champion’s input is being sidelined during decision-making discussions.
“Absolutely not,” Mekies replied firmly. “As much as it may have felt different, the reality is that our drivers are completely integrated in the choices we make.
“It doesn't mean that we don't have our own little games at saying ‘what do you think and what do you think’. But, at the end of the day, we agree on what to try. And then sometimes there is a bit of, ‘I told you’ [games going on].”
Rather than seeing those moments as problematic, Mekies argued they are actually a necessary part of refining the car and pushing the team forward.
“But we still learn together. And what is clear is that both sides are very conscious that you need that dynamic, you need that ‘I told you’ feeling sometimes in order to progress.”
The Frenchman added that Red Bull’s willingness to push boundaries will inevitably produce occasional setbacks, but he sees that as preferable to standing still in an increasingly competitive field.
“If you take risks, you will get the pain. And it's to get these sort of drivers feelings, to get our drivers pushing us to say, 'look, it may be only four or five tenths to the best cars, but it felt like it could be much better.' It's only an invitation for us to keep taking risks and keep exploring.”
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