Red Bull cancel Laurent Mekies media session after Max Verstappen DNF

Red Bull cancelled Laurent Mekies' traditional post-race media briefing at the Chinese GP following a poor weekend for the team. 

The session was called off to allow the team principal and CEO to catch an early flight home from Shanghai on a weekend when the team scored just four points, through Isack Hadjar's eighth-place finish. 

Max Verstappen failed to score a point in either the Sprint or grand prix, recording a ninth-place on Saturday before retiring on Lap 45 when running in sixth place, having suffered an energy recovery system (ERS) coolant failure.

The decision was made to then retire to protect the hardware from future damage.

Verstappen suffered a pair of poor starts in both races across the weekend, falling down to P20 in the Sprint, and P16 in the grand prix before recovering, although in the race it was aided by the four drivers posting 'Did Not Starts', including the McLaren pair of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. 

However, in Red Bull's press release, Mekies described how the team would have been "naive" if it did not expect to encounter reliability issues with its new in-house Red Bull Powertrains engine. 

"The Chinese Grand Prix proved to be a very tough event for us from Friday onwards," said Mekies.

"Being on the back foot at the start of a Sprint weekend is the worst possible scenario as there is really little time to catch up and get on top of any difficulties. We knew that just getting onto the grid in Melbourne with our own PU was a major achievement in itself and it would have been naïve not to expect we would encounter reliability issues.

"Today, we had to retire Max because of a coolant fault. However, this was not our only issue as overall, performance-wise, our package showed some significant shortcomings. 

"However, we have learned so much over the past few weeks, and I expect that we can be more competitive from the next round in Japan in a fortnight’s time. 

"After that, the unfortunate but inevitable cancellation of the races in April will give all of us a chance to catch our breath and work as hard as always in Milton Keynes.

"We have a great group of talented people on the campus, and I have full confidence that we will get through our current limitations thanks to a massive push from everyone and improve our package rapidly."