Laurent Mekies believes that Max Verstappen’s “technical sensitivity is outstanding” and has played a crucial role in helping Red Bull return to the front, with the team principal hoping that they can fight for more victories after winning in Singapore.
Red Bull have achieved a remarkable turnaround from where they started the 2026 season, overhauling a significant deficit and improving their reliability to a stage where Verstappen could secure back-to-back triumphs in Malaysia and Singapore.
After delivering one of the closest race finishes of the season at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the four-time World Champion finally stood on the top step in Round 16 and went a step further at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, converting pole position into wins in both the Sprint and race.
Upgrades have been key in fuelling the team’s progress, and Mekies revealed that Verstappen’s knowledge of car performance informed them which direction to take.
“His input is massive,” the team boss said after the Singapore Grand Prix. “His technical sensitivity is outstanding, probably without any equivalent and therefore yes, he has that capability to pinpoint what is limiting performance.
“Unfortunately for us it doesn’t mean that we have a fix for it when he tells us what the problem is, but at least he tells us what the problem is. It’s a massive help for the team.
“We do it in a way where we are always very direct and transparent with each other, and constructive even if it comes with emotion sometimes. It’s a massive boost for the chassis development and a massive boost to the PU development. Again, we wish we could provide solutions faster sometimes, but it’s part of the game.
“Even on a weekend where you take two poles and two wins like this weekend, we are still very honest with each other about the fact that there were still a number of things we would like to see done better, and that’s the spirit of this team. With that spirit, we will go on and reset and tackle the next races.”
The last few rounds have seen Red Bull close in on McLaren for P3 in the Teams’ Championship – just seven points separate the two – but Mekies emphasised that despite their resurgence, they don’t want to get too carried away.
He explained: “I think the fact is that in these last three races we had the pace to win and actually we won two out of the three, you know. For the first time this season in these three races, we had ultimate pace.
“It’s fair to say that the three tracks are different enough for one to think that moving to other types of tracks the car should be competitive – and that’s also what we think, that the car should be competitive, having shown what it has shown in the last three races now.
“It’s never a given, and you have seen it with many, many examples this year. You had the back-to-back wins from the McLaren, and then suffered a bit more after. You had a very dominant period from Mercedes, and after they’ve been suffering, so it’s a fight every race weekend to extract everything.
“If you do so, we think we can fight for wins. There is another element, which is that we have completed our update programme for this year. So, this pecking order could well very rapidly change if some or many of our competitors bring upgrades.”
Like every team, Red Bull are aware that they’ve got to switch their attention and resources to taking another step forward in 2027, when they are hopeful they can compete for titles once again.
“There will be no other substantial upgrade to the car,” Mekies added. “Now, don’t get me wrong, it does not mean that we will not continue to push very hard to improve, continue to push very hard to use every remaining race to learn for this year and to learn for next year.
“That’s what we have to say to each other. We have to tell each other, you know, the first win is the target. But the other target is to take all the learning, so the development programme will not change. We have put our focus to ‘27. We think there is still a huge amount of learning in ‘26 that we could use in ‘27.”
