Laurent Mekies: “very frustrating to leave Mexico without any points”
The French team manager at Racing Bulls did not hide his frustration at the end of a weekend where the team seemed to have regained some performance. A number of incidents were fatal to both drivers and the Italian team now sees Haas pulling away ahead of them.
Racing Bulls missed an opportunity this week in Mexico. The Italian team, coming off a successful Grand Prix in Austin, with Liam Lawson securing ninth place, unfortunately did not continue its momentum this weekend. However, Friday’s free practice sessions had given the Faenza team a lot of confidence, especially due to the two third places secured by the Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda. Laurent Mekies, the team principal, was optimistic based on the results and hoped to see one of the two cars in Q3. However, things didn’t really go as planned.
A qualification ended in the wall for Tsunoda
After another successful free practice session on Saturday (7th place for Tsunoda, 10th for Lawson), confidence was high within the Italian team. However, in Q2, while they were in eleventh and twelfth place, the Japanese driver made a mistake on his final timed lap and hit the wall coming out of the stadium. An accident that immediately ended the session and eliminated both Racing Bulls drivers. The team boss was naturally disappointed at the end of the qualifying session. Yuki’s accident cost dearly, as the domino effect also prevented Liam from reaching Q3, but that’s the way it goes. The Frenchman hoped to bounce back the next day, but the race did not help things on the Red Bull sister team’s side.
Incidents that ruined the race of the two drivers.
From the start, Tsunoda, positioned on the outside, sees Gasly’s car move towards the left. This forces the Williams to move to the left, causing an accident with the Japanese driver. A fourth retirement for the Japanese driver, who couldn’t even make it past the first corner. On the other hand, Liam Lawson tried a different strategy by starting on hard tires. After a good first stint, the New Zealander was involved in an incident with Franco Colapinto. A hard-fought battle between the two drivers that ended up damaging the front wing of the Racing Bulls, forcing him to pit for a second time. Finally finishing sixteenth, he couldn’t replicate the same performance as in Austin, where he had finished ninth.
Despite a promising pace, Racing Bulls did not score any points this weekend and remains stuck at 36 points, with a 10-point gap behind Haas, who scored eight in Mexico. At the end of the race, Laurent Mekies couldn’t hide his disappointment. “It is very frustrating to leave Mexico with no points. We believe that the car has improved over the past two races thanks to the upgrades we introduced in Austin. It was one of our most competitive weekends in a long time, in terms of pure pace, it’s clear in all three free practice sessions with both cars running in the top 10 almost all the time.”
The Frenchman then commented on the race of his two drivers, who were involved in incidents ruining their chance of getting a good result. The weekend derailed from that moment on, and in the first lap of the race, Yuki was the unfortunate victim of a squeeze, the kind of incident that can happen in the middle of the pack. Liam had a reversed strategy to try to overtake some of the cars in front of us. He had a good first relay and fought well throughout the race. The contact with Colapinto practically ended any chance of fighting for points. A statement shared by Guillaume Dezoteux, head of performance at Visa CashApp RB F1.
A missed opportunity for Racing Bulls in Mexico
We were hoping for better. The mechanics did a fantastic job repairing Yuki’s car after the qualifying accident, but unfortunately, there was contact between him and Albon right after the start, which ended his race. Liam had a different strategy starting on hard tires. After his pit stop, he was in traffic all the time and eventually had contact that damaged his front wing and forced us to bring him back to the pit. It’s a frustrating end to the weekend, during which both drivers showed good pace with our car continuing to improve.
A car that nonetheless seems faster.
Despite everything, optimism is in place within the Italian team, with improvements that seem to be working and making the car faster and faster. As Laurent Mekies explains, the key will be to maximize results, why not as soon as this weekend in Brazil. « We will focus on having a calmer weekend in São Paulo in a few days and attacking very strongly to see where the recent improvement in car pace can take us. »
