Laurent Mekies has been warned of experiencing the "lion's den" of the F1 media for the first time as Red Bull team principal.
The Belgian GP at Spa will be Mekies' first public outing as Red Bull's new boss, having replaced the sacked Christian Horner following the British GP - the first-ever race in the history of Red Bull, Horner will not be present for.
Owing to the situation, Mekies is likely to be under huge media pressure throughout the weekend, including in his official post-race debrief on Sunday after the race, something he did not do at Racing Bulls.
He could also be selected to attend the official FIA press conference on Friday or appear on TV with F1 broadcasters, as Horner usually did.
Given the attention expected to be on him and the team, Mekies has been warned by former F1 racer Jolyon Palmer of entering "the lion's den."
"I imagine he's obviously going to be set for the lion's den of the media scrum, and it is going to be a really intense week for him," Palmer told the F1 Nation podcast.
"He's going into a championship-winning team, and his experience with Racing Bulls is so different in terms of how it operates and what they expect, but Red Bull still has the ingredients for a really strong weekend.
"They've still got a great race team and they how to execute races, and they've got a driver who can massively over-perform when he's back is against the wall in Max Verstappen, who is always good at Spa, and the team are good at Spa.
"So if you are Laurent heading into his first weekend, you're going to absorb life within a top-line F1 team, it is going to be very different for him personally with the media pressures and scrutiny and the questions.
"It is a sprint weekend, so there'll be talking points on track immediately, and you're just hoping Red Bull hits the ground running, but the team will be gearing up behind him.
"After the fallout of everything in the last year-and-a-half, and the key personnel who have left Red Bull, there are a lot of people in the team looking around and thinking: 'Who is going to go next?'
"The team was very unsettled, and this is the chance for the rest of the team to re-galvanise and put their support behind Laurent."
Also interesting:
Join RacingNews365's Ian Parkes, Sam Coop and Nick Golding, as they look ahead to this weekend's F1 Belgian Grand Prix. Red Bull's new chapter is a major talking point following the arrival of Laurent Mekies, as is the fight for the drivers' title.
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