Laurent Mekies looks back on a ‘difficult’ weekend in Zandvoort. Expectations were high leading up to the last home race of star driver Max Verstappen, partly due to the expected rain on the Dutch coast. However, the last Dutch GP ended in disappointment for the Austrian racing team: Verstappen crashed in the first lap. Liam Lawson limited the damage to P7, but for Mekies it is clear that Red Bull still has a lot of work to do.
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“A difficult weekend for the team in Zandvoort,” Mekies summarized the last Dutch GP to the media. “First of all, I think the most important thing is that Max (Verstappen, ed.) is okay. It was quite a crash and we were all glad that he could get out of the car unharmed. That is the most important.” He continued: “In terms of performance, I won’t beat around the bush; it was a very tough weekend and it seems that we have taken a step back compared to where we were before the summer break.”
‘Lawson did what he could’
Verstappen also said afterwards that the crash didn’t bother him much. The lack of competitiveness at Red Bull worried him more. The Austrian racing team clearly could not match the other top teams, namely Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren. “Of course, we will never know how fast Max would have been in the race, but we have to admit that as the sessions progressed, it became clearly more difficult than in Austria, Belgium, or Hungary,” Mekies noted.
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“We still have a lot of work to do. First of all, we need to find out whether the competition has implemented better upgrades or if something happened that unnecessarily limited us in Zandvoort,” Mekies added. “That is the main goal for the coming weeks, before we strike back again in Monza.” Red Bull did not go home completely empty-handed: substitute Lawson finished seventh. “It is very difficult to just switch teams and I think Liam (Lawson, ed.) did what he could. In qualifying, he did very well; he was only a tenth behind Max.” Due to Verstappen’s crash, Red Bull no longer had a reference point in the race. “But probably P7 was the highest achievable,” Mekies admitted.
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