Max Verstappen 2025 turnaround sparked by internal Red Bull 'fire'

Laurent Mekies has hailed the "fire" inside everyone at Red Bull that lit the blue touchpaper to Max Verstappen's astonishing fight back that almost resulted in a fifth consecutive F1 drivers' championship for the Dutch driver.

Following Verstappen's home grand prix at Zandvoort at the end of August, when he finished second behind McLaren's Oscar Piastri, the 28-year-old appeared down and out in the race for the title as he trailed the Australian by 104 points.

But Verstappen delivered an astonishing rally in which he won six of the remaining nine races, albeit falling just two points shy of Lando Norris as the British driver overhauled McLaren team-mate Piastri to claim his maiden crown.

It was a remarkable transformation, even if it just fell shy of its objective, following a first half of the season through to the summer break in which McLaren threatened to dominate at almost every race.

The lack of a title threat resulted in the shock sacking of Christian Horner as team principal after 20 years in charge, with Mekies taking up the reins as he switched from Racing Bulls.

Extolling the virtues of the team, speaking to a select group of media at the end of last season, including RacingNews365, Mekies said: "I think the group is very tight and has a fantastic atmosphere.

"We have our difficult moments. We have our difficult conversations because not everything is black and white. We don't have an answer for everything.

"But you see that the fire inside our team members is not a fire against the team-mates - it's a fire to get that car faster."

Despite Verstappen's astonishing run of results after the summer break, never at any stage did Mekies take any credit. It was a stance he maintained through to the end of the campaign.

"We had the discussions about the impact I felt I had," said Mekies. "When I told you it was zero impact, I meant it, and I still mean it."

Crediting, instead, "an outstanding group that never gives up", he added: "We only want to do pure racing, and all we have done together is concentrate on pure racing. That's it.

"The job is to protect the group in such a way that they can concentrate on what they are so good at, which is having the technical discussions, the easy ones and the difficult ones.

"But doing it in an environment where you can have difficult conversations, because all we are trying to achieve is to get the car faster.

"Huge credit needs to go to them for what has been achieved this year because a turnaround of that magnitude has not been seen in a long time."