Laurent Mekies says Red Bull Racing give best chance to own talents before looking elsewhere

That is what Red Bull did when they started their Formula 1 power unit program with Ford, as they hired staff from Mercedes and Honda, which meant they had a decent start as power unit manufacturers despite the conservative odds on premier bet mw.

However, on the racing team side, they have been hemorrhaging talent, with the like of Rob Marshall and Jonathan Wheatley leaving for McLaren and Audi, respectively. Will Courtenay, the team's former head of strategy, also left for McLaren, with Adrian Newey remaining the highest-profile departure, with the design genius leaving for Aston Martin.

Recently though, it was announced that Max Verstappen's long-time race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, will join McLaren after his current contract with the team ends in 2028, which raised questions about the situation within Red Bull Racing, not to mention Verstappen's future with them.

Mekies remains calm in the aftermath, admitting his team is still able to develop talent and promote from within while also claiming they have no problem looking at hiring from outside their own pool.

He said: “In terms of replacing GP [Lambiase], we have a couple of years to think about it, but jokes aside, look, we are quite proud.

“As much as I said many times, we don't want to be defensive about the fact that we lost some talent; it's a fact, and it's been there for three or four years, and as a result of that, it's the highest priority in the team to make sure that we create the environment in order to retain, develop, and attract the best talent in the pit lane.

“We feel we have the best talent already, departments by departments, and that starts with Ben [Waterhouse] on the power unit side for his team and with Pierre [Wache] on the chassis side and his team.

“And under them, we feel we have the best talent, departments by departments. When we can, we will always try to see how we can promote internally. We have created a number of talents over the last few years, and we are proud of that; we want to continue," the Frenchman explained.

He then added: “If and when we need to go and get a specific set of skills or experience from some of our dear competitors around the pit lane, we will do it.

“As we have done, you have seen the last couple of weeks ago; we had a very good mix in our new structure, a very good mix of internal promotion with Ben Waterhouse having now an extended parameters and with Andrea Landi joining soon [from Racing Bulls].

“We go and give the best chance to our talents, and if we need to go elsewhere to inject, we will do it happily," Mekies concluded.

Mekies himself was brought in from Racing Bulls in the middle of the 2025 F1 season to replace Christian Horner as team boss following Red Bull Racing's bad performance that season. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)