EXCLUSIVE: Mekies on Verstappen’s new deal, Hadjar’s injury and Lawson’s Red Bull return

Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies had plenty to talk about as the F1 paddock reconvened on Thursday, headlined by a new contract for Max Verstappen that will keep the four-time World Champion at the Milton Keynes-based squad until at least the end of 2030.

After the announcement dropped, Mekies sat down with F1.com to talk through how the deal of the summer came about, as well as the news that the injured Isack Hadjar will miss this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix with a wrist injury – handing Liam Lawson a return to the senior team, and Yuki Tsunoda a comeback at Racing Bulls…

Verstappen sticks with Red Bull

As our conversation begins on the top floor of Red Bull’s hospitality unit at Zandvoort, with the sun symbolically breaking through the clouds, Mekies cannot hide his delight around Verstappen’s renewal, and what it means for the team he has led since mid-2025.

“It’s phenomenal news, I’m not going to lie,” he grins. “It’s phenomenal news for Oracle Red Bull Racing, and if you allow me to say, I think it’s phenomenal news for F1, and perhaps for motorsport in general.

“It’s the best driver on the grid deciding to recommit to the team, to go another four-and-a-half years with the team. We take it as an incredible demonstration of trust for our people, for our vision, for our culture.

“We don’t take it lightly. We know it comes with a huge responsibility now on us to deliver a very, very fast package, chassis and power unit, that he can use and can bring us back to the top as soon as possible.”

Underlining just how important Verstappen’s commitment is, following a tricky start to 2026, and the noise around his future, Mekies adds: “In general, you have to look at what are your pillars that will allow you to open a new winning cycle. That’s the only thing we are interested in at Oracle Red Bull Racing, to win, and that’s the only thing that interests Max, is to win.

“If you get the drivers pillar sorted, it’s already a big one, and obviously that’s what happened today. You have the best driver in the world, and you’ve put that in the bank.

“What it’s going to allow you to do is also to excel on a few other crucial pillars that you need to get success again. The most important one is the people, our people. We feel we have the best people, and being able to give them the reassurance that we have Max staying with us for such a long time is a clear statement of where the project is going.”

So, how exactly did the talks with Verstappen go before pen was put to paper? And how has Mekies’ relationship with the Dutchman developed over his year or so in charge at Red Bull?

“You know, the simple truth is Max has always said that he wanted to stay with Red Bull,” Mekies replies. “He has said that from the very first conversations we had about the extension to the very last conversation we had. When we finally agreed on everything, he said, ‘I told you I always wanted to stay!’

“Of course, we had a complicated first part of the season with the new regulations, our car not being competitive at the start of the year. Obviously we pushed very late on the title fight last year, so we had our moments of frustration, but that’s because we are united by that single desire to win.

“We have only one brief, and it’s to win. So, every time we are not winning, we are going to be – and we are going to stay – brutally honest with each other. We are going to challenge each other, and we are going to express frustrations, because that’s how we all feel as competitors, and that’s what gets us out of bed every day.”

Hadjar’s injury – and Lawson’s Red Bull return

Verstappen’s future being settled is not the only big Red Bull talking point this weekend, though, with his 2026 team mate, Isack Hadjar, being ruled out of action due to a wrist injury he sustained over the summer break.

“Isack is alright,” says Mekies. “He suffered a minor injury in the summer break while training. He’s going to arrive actually tomorrow [Friday] at the track.

“We have no reason to take any risk with him. He has done a fantastic start of the season, he has been stronger and stronger every time he has been driving this car out of the garage, session after session, weekend after weekend.

“We take zero risk, we let him sort out the recovery this weekend, and hopefully we’ll have him very, very quickly [back] in the car.”

Without any prompting, Mekies continues: “That also gives us the opportunity to welcome Liam back [to Red Bull Racing], which is very nice. He has been doing a very good job in the first part of the season, he knows this generation of cars very well, and that’s the perfect fit.”

It is another twist in Lawson’s rollercoaster F1 career so far, following his stand-in debut at Zandvoort in 2023, subsequent substitute appearances and that rapid-fire Red Bull promotion and demotion at the start of last year – the New Zealander spending just two weekends alongside Verstappen before being sent back to Racing Bulls.

Having impressively rebuilt his career and reputation over the last season-and-a-half, Red Bull chiefs decided to give Lawson the nod to slot in as Hadjar’s temporary replacement, with 2026 reserve driver Tsunoda subsequently taking his spot next to rookie Arvid Lindblad at Racing Bulls.

Asked how much Lawson deserves this second chance of sorts, Mekies says: “It’s been a very difficult first two races last year for him with the team. I’m sure it was not the end that he deserved.

“If we look at how he has managed to reconstruct from there, to rebuild, and the level of performance he has been showing ever since, consistently, with the old generation of car, with this generation of car, I think it’s very well deserved that he gets that chance.

“Yuki also gets the chance to go back behind the wheel, and he has been deserving that as well, working patiently in the simulator through the year, and that’s another pleasant twist of the weekend.”

Full focus on a strong second half

That flurry of news aside, Zandvoort kicks off a busy second half of the 2026 season – across which Red Bull will be aiming to join Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren (who triumphed last time out in Hungary) as Grand Prix winners under F1’s new era of regulations.

Even if it will be starting in unusual style for Red Bull, with their unexpected driver reshuffling, how confident is Mekies that the multiple World Champions – boosted by recent updates to the RB22 challenger – are back on a path towards fighting for victories and titles again?

“The mood will not be high until we are back to winning,” Mekies makes clear. “Don’t expect us to be happy with the progress we have made, because it has not been enough yet to win races.

“From a bit more than one second off the pace at the beginning of the year, we are probably now in the last three-tenths [to the front]. The competition is not waiting for us, everybody is developing very, very hard, so already the fact that we managed to close the gap to that extent is a big credit to everyone back at Milton Keynes.

“We absolutely still want to try and win races this year. Do we think we have enough pace in the car right not to win in a fair fight? No. But the field is tight enough for any of the four teams to be in a winning position as soon as one of us does not extract everything out of the weekend, or makes the slightest mistake.”