Mekies after Max's pole in Baku: 'Max didn't put a foot wrong'

Published on 20 September 2025 by Yvonne Huijs

Laurent Mekies, CEO and Team Principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing, reflects positively on a tough qualifying session in Baku: "Honestly, that was outstanding from Max, it was such a difficult Qualifying session. There were 60kph gusts of wind out there and every run was different, sometimes with the wind and sometimes with the drizzle, but Max didn’t put a foot wrong, he just kept building and adapted perfectly. Nice job from Yuki too, that’s his best Quali with us and he really managed that session well today."

According to Mekies, this shows how strong the team is performing on all fronts: "A big well done to everyone here at the track and back in Milton Keynes, because the car is performing here, at a very strong level. It’s a good sign and a testimony to all the hard work taking place. The Team’s communication was also superb today, not just from the pit wall to the drivers but across the board, when there were a lot of uncontrollable factors. They took all the right risks, we were the last two cars out of the pitlane on the very last run, which included a fair amount of risk, and it worked. We don’t have too much information on race pace here, as not many teams got long runs in on Friday, as we were all trying to keep our race tyres for tomorrow. So, it’s a little more uncertain than normal how things will go and there’s always the risk of safety cars here, so we will take it as it comes."

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