Mekies after disappointing Saturday in Sao Paulo: 'It is painful'

Published on 08 November 2025 by Julien Lemmen

Laurent Mekies, CEO and team principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing, reflects after qualifying in Brazil: “Today has not been a positive day for the team, but one we will try and learn from. The Sprint was tough and we did not have the pace to fight for the win. We managed to stay not too far off the leaders though and brought home some points with Max in P4. We were not happy with where we were after the Sprint, so we decided to make a number of changes. It is part of the risk taking we felt was necessary to see if we could get more out of the car. It didn’t work and if anything, it went in the opposite direction and clearly, we lost a lot of competitiveness. 

Mekies continues: "It is painful and difficult to accept but it is what happens when you take risks sometimes and the best we can do is to learn from it and see where we can improve the car from here. It’s fair to say we are missing the right window for the car for this circuit, in these conditions. That is where the effort will go and we will look at the options to see how we can improve the situation. All the team is fully focussed to get both cars into a more competitive place for the race tomorrow.”

Contest GP Brazil: win a by Max Verstappen signed Red Bull Racing cap!

Max’s special Brazilian helmet is now available as a scale model (1:2 and 1:4). In addition, a Brazilian cap, sport shirt, and zip hoodie have been launched! Check it out: https://www.verstappen.com/collections/brazil-collection