Mekies: Verstappen the best, most expensive sensor in the car

Mekies took over the top role at Red Bull Racing as a result of Christian Horner's ousting following the weekend of the 2025 British Grand Prix, which Verstappen started from pole but finished in fifth.

Since then, the Frenchman has consistently praised the four-time Formula 1 Champion, who delivered his best performance ever in the sport following the midseason turnaround with the management of their capricious RB21.

He admitted that despite Verstappen's reputation, working closely with him offers more insight about him; he said: "As much as we have spent, all of us, too many years in Formula 1 and have seen Max getting unbelievable achievements, all I can tell you is that when you get the chance to work on his side of the paddock, you still get blown away.

"Obviously you guys hear a lot of what is said over the radio, but you don't hear everything,” he added. "So the quality of his technical feedback and the level of sensitivity that he has in the car [is very impressive].

“We used to have this joke inside the team where we'd just say that he's the best sensor we have in the car. Arguably also the most expensive, but that's another question!" Mekies quipped.

While you may find other F1 drivers with other interests away from the racetrack, Verstappen is a different beast, as the only thing he thinks about is racing, as he is known to spend his time away from track racing in other categories, not to mention being an avid sim racer with his own sim racing outfit.

Mekies commented: "The guy lives motorsport day and night, literally day and night. Probably more than any of us, he is motorsport in some respect.

“He's not escaping from any meetings to go and do something else, but he's completely merging it. Between the races he's doing his sim racing, probably with somewhere in his mind the things that he can still learn or improve on his driving, or the preparations for the next race.

"If he has a free weekend, he goes racing somewhere else with GT3 cars. That's something that looks completely unreal from our side or, as a matter of fact, is unreal.

“He does that with the capacity to fully immerse himself in the project, not to judge it from outside. But trying to find the right keys to make sure that we all push in the same direction, and to make sure that we all appreciate what he's trying to tell us with the communications," the Red Bull boss explained.

Despite the impressive comeback, Verstappen lost out on a fifth F1 Crown to Lando Norris by two points despite winning the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

(Quotes from Motorsport.com)