Laurent Mekies in Spa-Francorchamps - Red Bull Contentpool

Mekies sees opportunities for Verstappen despite difficult qualifying

22:15, 02 Aug

byKimberley Hoefnagel

Red Bull Racing faced a challenging Saturday in Hungary, with Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda set to start from P8 and P16 respectively on Sunday. Despite the issues and less-than-ideal grid positions, team boss Laurent Mekies still sees opportunities ahead.

For now, it seems that the fight for the win will be mainly fought by Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. Yet in Formula 1 you can never say that with certainty.

Verstappen already said at the end of the qualification that he does not really expect to achieve a victory in 2025. However, his team boss is keen to keep fighting.

''We have a lot of work ahead of us to unlock the performance, but we will keep fighting and tomorrow will be a very different set of conditions,'' Mekies said after qualifying.

Verstappen in Hungary | Red Bull Content Pool

Mekies sees opportunities for Verstappen in Hungary

''We are potentially going to have high temperatures in the race and we will see what we can do,'' he continued.

The team boss hopes that Red Bull can still benefit from the changing weather conditions. The expectation is that it will start to rain at the beginning of the day, followed by a rise in temperature during the day.

Higher temperatures often mean a higher tire degradation and thus more pit stops. This could offer opportunities in terms of strategy.

Mekies full of praise for the Hungaroring renovation

Finally, the Red Bull team boss also had some laudatory words for those who worked incredibly hard over the past year to renovate the circuit: ''We will be racing at a very impressive new look Hungaroring.''

''We must credit the incredible work done here to completely transform the race track in just one year, with new garages, grandstands and a total overhaul. Well done to everyone involved, it’s a super venue to go racing in,'' Mekies concluded.