Mekies after qualifying Italian GP: 'Max magic'

Published on 06 September 2025 by Coen Versteeg

Laurent Mekies, team principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing, said after qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix: “If you look back to where we were here last year as a team, it was a very difficult weekend, so big credit to the Team because they have done such a good job of trying to get to the bottom of what went wrong. We worked to find out what limited us on this track and came here with some answers. Then you add the Max magic to that. It has been a very solid weekend so far, Friday was strong but still nobody took that to be good enough and Max, Yuki and their teams have been chasing the next thousandth, and the next thousandth after that. There were quite a few cars capable of taking pole today and everyone was in a very small gap, but from Friday Max really guided us on what he needed to extract more from the car. Well done to him because he was untouchable and drove an incredible lap. Yuki has had another good weekend so far, and to see him into Q3 again shows the progress he is making in the car. He missed out with track position on his final run, but he’s in the mix to fight for good points on Sunday. It will be a race that goes down to the smallest details, and we will fight very hard. The McLaren advantage tends to increase as the race goes on, and while we have been in front of them a number of times, they have often show more pace. So, we are working every weekend to try to reduce that deficit and tomorrow will be another answer as to our progress in this area, as four or five cars could be racing for a win.”