2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[euv2]

Jos also was very against Horner, so Max by default also supported his dad. It was Helmut, Jos, Max, Austria vs Thai and Horner. Thais were under constant pressure to justify Horner, but as performance dipped + combined with the scandal, the Thais withdrew their support.

Going by Helmut words, it also seems like he was backstabbed by the Austrian's, hence his comment about 'you think you understand people'. There are no saints in this fight, everyone fought dirty, including the Austrians with their constant negative PR against Horner by using their Dutch journos. Horner thinking he could somehow get the better of a 49% shareholder, with operational rights to F1.

Verstappen might be calm now, but the core team around him has disappeared fast, he doesn't have people as many people he feels loyal too, if the cars in the next 1-2 years don't perform, it will be easier than ever for him to jump ship. If Verstappen jumps ship, there's a big slump coming for Red Bull.

[ME4ME]

Mekies:

“Sure, we wasted time on the 2026 development, but in return, we gained trust and certainty. Next year, the challenge is titanic: we’re building the engine in-house with the support of Ford. We know we’ll have to struggle at the start; it would be naive to say no”

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/laurent- ... 2026-fears

This sets the expectations at a reasonable level I think.
I thrust this more than Marko's line about going for both championships again next year.
Back to 2014 kinda results I guess.

[Wouter]

Mekies:

“Sure, we wasted time on the 2026 development, but in return, we gained trust and certainty. Next year, the challenge is titanic: we’re building the engine in-house with the support of Ford. We know we’ll have to struggle at the start; it would be naive to say no”

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/laurent- ... 2026-fears

This sets the expectations at a reasonable level I think.
I thrust this more than Marko's line about going for both championships again next year.
Back to 2014 kinda results I guess.

.
This comes from the not so reliable GP Blog and it says: "Mekies told Corriere della Sera."

So the original source is the not so reliable Corriere della Sera.

[ME4ME]

Its not a rumour or some anonymous source speculation. Its a quote.

[Sieper]

The red bull,team is too capable to not be there. Ok, engine. But i think all engines will be in the ball park. Without mgu-h.

To me, the active aero just screams (rules) bending. This whole rearwing from the current area was to prevent moving mainwingplanes.

That will decide who wins. The last airbender.

[Watto]

Jos also was very against Horner, so Max by default also supported his dad. It was Helmut, Jos, Max, Austria vs Thai and Horner. Thais were under constant pressure to justify Horner, but as performance dipped + combined with the scandal, the Thais withdrew their support.

Going by Helmut words, it also seems like he was backstabbed by the Austrian's, hence his comment about 'you think you understand people'. There are no saints in this fight, everyone fought dirty, including the Austrians with their constant negative PR against Horner by using their Dutch journos. Horner thinking he could somehow get the better of a 49% shareholder, with operational rights to F1.

Verstappen might be calm now, but the core team around him has disappeared fast, he doesn't have people as many people he feels loyal too, if the cars in the next 1-2 years don't perform, it will be easier than ever for him to jump ship. If Verstappen jumps ship, there's a big slump coming for Red Bull.

I tend to think Didi saw this coming and why a big reason behind him wanting to sell 50% of the team to Porsche. Think he saw the conflict between Horner and Marko and more corporate control under the team. The report the other day that Marko tried to sign Alex Paulo without head offices knowledge as being perhaps the final straw for him to be removed. I think it's a hard call, I get from their pod its hard to run a team with someone running rogue but also that is very much the DNA of Red Bull and their success too.

I think this was probably inevitable in the end. I though one would have survived but 2 people that both wanted control

[venkyhere]

All the politics and narrative wars ... none of it explains "once Horner was gone, car got better", because Horner is not an engineer, and I don't think he had anything to do with engineering decisions/processes.

The only explanation that makes sense logically - "Mekies brought a fresh perspective and asked some engineering questions, which helped unearth hidden flaws with Redbull's factory tools / floor design flaws". Which in turn, asks more uncomfortable questions :

a) why wasn't anyone else within the company able to ask-Qs/point-out-flaws ? Is it a case of incompetence within the ranks, or is it a case of tech leadership snubbing mid/low level engineers ? whichever is the case, that could be a death knell that marks the start of an 'engineering decline'.

b) I know this is a favourite within the Drive-to-Survive type audience, where they think one-person (driver, engineer, TP) is responsible for everything and forget the rest of several hundred employees in the whole organization, but it's a Question that can no more be seen as trivial - Just how much did the loss of Newey/Marshall etc actually affect the team ? Just how much dependent was the team on these 'top tech guys who left' for car setup ?

[FittingMechanics]

I think Mekies was just lucky. Everyone at Red Bull was trying to find a solution for the car because they wanted to keep Max happy. This was a major priority and in the end they found some solutions. It wasn't perfect and they had issues finding a perfect setup each race but they at least found it majority of the time. This was critical for them as Max was/is considering leaving.

If Horner stayed the story would have been the same but with more printouts and complaints about stewarding.

[SiLo]

I think Mekies was just lucky. Everyone at Red Bull was trying to find a solution for the car because they wanted to keep Max happy. This was a major priority and in the end they found some solutions. It wasn't perfect and they had issues finding a perfect setup each race but they at least found it majority of the time. This was critical for them as Max was/is considering leaving.

If Horner stayed the story would have been the same but with more printouts and complaints about stewarding.

Horner is just an easy scapegoat at this point. Crazy really considering the success he's overseen with the team. Marko is an arse though so he can't help himself.

[f1isgood]

All the politics and narrative wars ... none of it explains "once Horner was gone, car got better", because Horner is not an engineer, and I don't think he had anything to do with engineering decisions/processes.

The only explanation that makes sense logically - "Mekies brought a fresh perspective and asked some engineering questions, which helped unearth hidden flaws with Redbull's factory tools / floor design flaws". Which in turn, asks more uncomfortable questions :

a) why wasn't anyone else within the company able to ask-Qs/point-out-flaws ? Is it a case of incompetence within the ranks, or is it a case of tech leadership snubbing mid/low level engineers ? whichever is the case, that could be a death knell that marks the start of an 'engineering decline'.

b) I know this is a favourite within the Drive-to-Survive type audience, where they think one-person (driver, engineer, TP) is responsible for everything and forget the rest of several hundred employees in the whole organization, but it's a Question that can no more be seen as trivial - Just how much did the loss of Newey/Marshall etc actually affect the team ? Just how much dependent was the team on these 'top tech guys who left' for car setup ?

Upgrades made the car better. Mekies produced an upgrade that took 4 race weekends to understand. Horner was the TP when the upgrades were commissioned. This whole setup thing is BS. They need three sessions to setup the car regardless of the weekend. The upgrade actually gave them performance which they missed in medium/slow speed.

[f1isgood]

I think Mekies was just lucky. Everyone at Red Bull was trying to find a solution for the car because they wanted to keep Max happy. This was a major priority and in the end they found some solutions. It wasn't perfect and they had issues finding a perfect setup each race but they at least found it majority of the time. This was critical for them as Max was/is considering leaving.

If Horner stayed the story would have been the same but with more printouts and complaints about stewarding.

Horner is just an easy scapegoat at this point. Crazy really considering the success he's overseen with the team. Marko is an arse though so he can't help himself.

Pretty much.

[Emag]

I also think Horner getting the boot wasn't good for RedBull. I don't believe he was just a random guy that by coincidence ended up riding the success wave of the team. Clearly whatever he was doing, resonated well with this team in the background and they had the results to back it up. Had they had a competitive PU in the early turbo-hybrid era, this team would have been challenging for titles all the way through, which is remarkable to say the least. There's barely been any bad RedBull car since 2009.

The problem is that there were obviously some bad blood kind of sh*t going in the background in the last couple of years. High ranking individuals in the team ended up fighting with each other with regards to who gets the biggest piece of the pie after Dietrich death. Which is sad. In the end Horner kind of sealed his fate with the whole "cocoa puffs" fiasco, but I think that was just the catalyst that was used as an excuse to justify his departure. He had started to make enemies within before that.

[Badger]

I think Mekies was just lucky. Everyone at Red Bull was trying to find a solution for the car because they wanted to keep Max happy. This was a major priority and in the end they found some solutions. It wasn't perfect and they had issues finding a perfect setup each race but they at least found it majority of the time. This was critical for them as Max was/is considering leaving.

If Horner stayed the story would have been the same but with more printouts and complaints about stewarding.

Horner is just an easy scapegoat at this point. Crazy really considering the success he's overseen with the team. Marko is an arse though so he can't help himself.

They both oversaw the success of the team. Marko's word was effectively law for the entire period when DM was alive.

[Badger]

I also think Horner getting the boot wasn't good for RedBull. I don't believe he was just a random guy that by coincidence ended up riding the success wave of the team. Clearly whatever he was doing, resonated well with this team in the background and they had the results to back it up. Had they had a competitive PU in the early turbo-hybrid era, this team would have been challenging for titles all the way through, which is remarkable to say the least. There's barely been any bad RedBull car since 2009.

The problem is that there were obviously some bad blood kind of sh*t going in the background in the last couple of years. High ranking individuals in the team ended up fighting with each other with regards to who gets the biggest piece of the pie after Dietrich death. Which is sad. In the end Horner kind of sealed his fate with the whole "cocoa puffs" fiasco, but I think that was just the catalyst that was used as an excuse to justify his departure. He had started to make enemies within before that.

Success isn't eternal. Horner was a great leader for a long time but by the end he started slipping, the results and his personal decision making reflected that. The calm focus that the team found towards the end of the season is exactly what they needed to get back to.

[euv2]

I also think Horner getting the boot wasn't good for RedBull. I don't believe he was just a random guy that by coincidence ended up riding the success wave of the team. Clearly whatever he was doing, resonated well with this team in the background and they had the results to back it up. Had they had a competitive PU in the early turbo-hybrid era, this team would have been challenging for titles all the way through, which is remarkable to say the least. There's barely been any bad RedBull car since 2009.

The problem is that there were obviously some bad blood kind of sh*t going in the background in the last couple of years. High ranking individuals in the team ended up fighting with each other with regards to who gets the biggest piece of the pie after Dietrich death. Which is sad. In the end Horner kind of sealed his fate with the whole "cocoa puffs" fiasco, but I think that was just the catalyst that was used as an excuse to justify his departure. He had started to make enemies within before that.

Success isn't eternal. Horner was a great leader for a long time but by the end he started slipping, the results and his personal decision making reflected that. The calm focus that the team found towards the end of the season is exactly what they needed to get back to.

Horner was slipping? you don't think teams go through cycles? Red bull was adapting to the loss of Newey and Marshall; it takes time for the new guns to get to grips with their new roles and have the same decision making authority and conviction. Whilst also dealing with reduced ATR and the penalty that came with the overspend.

Marko somehow blamed Horner for the entire car performance, as if the same people Horner hired aren't responsible for the so called "comeback". You don't fire a guy whose been successful for 20 years just because of 1 years of slight underperformance, the Austrian side did well to convince all the casual followers of the sport that somehow Horner was responsible for the car performance and just replacing him with Mekies somehow solved everything.

It damning indictment of the technical team at Red bull if it took just Mekies to show them the light, a person who should be much less competent the 100s of PhD's and other senior staff there. If I was one of the senior technical staff at Red bull, I'd be pretty disappointed to see Mekies get all the credit.