Laurent Mekies is a French Formula 1 engineer and executive, currently CEO and Team Principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing. He was appointed in July 2025, replacing Christian Horner after Horner's 20-year run leading the team. ¹

He was born 28 April 1977 in Tours, France. According to Red Bull's own profile, his interest in F1 began after attending the 1988 French Grand Prix at Le Castellet with his father, which pushed him toward a motorsport-engineering career. ²

Education

Mekies trained as an engineer. His public LinkedIn profile lists Loughborough University in the UK as part of his education, and most F1 bios describe him as having an engineering background before entering Formula 1. ³

Early F1 career: Arrows, Minardi, Toro Rosso

Mekies started in Formula 1 in engineering roles, with early experience at Arrows and then Minardi. In 2003 he joined Minardi as a race engineer. When Red Bull bought Minardi and turned it into Toro Rosso, Mekies stayed with the organisation and rose through the technical ranks, eventually becoming Chief Engineer. ⁴

A major early-career highlight was Toro Rosso's shock win at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix with Sebastian Vettel. Mekies was part of the technical organisation behind that era, when the small Faenza-based team punched well above its weight. ⁴

FIA safety and technical role

After Toro Rosso, Mekies moved to the FIA, Formula 1's governing body, where he worked in senior safety and technical roles. One of the most important parts of his FIA career was his involvement in modern F1 safety work, including the period when the halo cockpit-protection system was developed and introduced. Le Monde specifically credits Mekies with work around the halo's implementation. ⁵

Fig. 04 — 2003 · PS03

This gave him a rare profile: not just a team engineer, but someone with experience inside the sport's regulator — understanding sporting rules, technical governance, safety politics, and team–regulator dynamics.

Ferrari years

In 2018, Mekies joined Ferrari as Sporting Director, later becoming Racing Director, a senior operational and trackside role. At Ferrari he worked through a turbulent period of driver changes, competitive swings, strategy criticism and the broader rebuilding of Ferrari's F1 operation. He left Ferrari in 2023 to return to the Red Bull family, this time to lead its junior/sister team. ⁶

Fig. 05 — 2008 · STR3

Racing Bulls / RB team principal

Mekies became team principal of the team now known as Visa Cash App Racing Bulls for the 2024 season — the latest version of the old Minardi / Toro Rosso / AlphaTauri organisation, meaning he returned to the same Faenza-based lineage where he had spent much of his earlier career. His reputation there was as a technically fluent, measured, low-drama operator: more engineer-executive than celebrity team boss. ⁶

Red Bull Racing CEO and Team Principal

In July 2025, Mekies was appointed CEO and Team Principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing, replacing Christian Horner effective immediately. Reuters reported the move on 9 July 2025, noting that Horner had led Red Bull since its 2005 F1 entry and had overseen eight Drivers' Championships and six Constructors' Championships. ⁷

That appointment put Mekies in one of the hardest jobs in motorsport. He inherited a team facing several simultaneous transitions: the post-Horner leadership change, competitive pressure from McLaren and others, the 2026 regulation reset, and Red Bull's move toward its own power-unit project with Ford. Reuters noted that when he took over, Red Bull was underperforming relative to its dominant Verstappen-era peak. ⁸

Management style

Mekies comes across as the opposite of the classic political F1 boss: technical, calm and process-oriented. Red Bull's own material emphasised his focus on the team's people and internal "energy," while Reuters reported that he framed his early job as supporting Red Bull's deep technical bench through a period of major challenge. In plain English, he is more an engineering manager with deep institutional F1 knowledge than a flamboyant, Horner-style figure. ⁹

Fig. 07 — 2019 · SF90

Why Red Bull picked him

Mekies offered three things Red Bull valued. First, he knew the Red Bull system from his Toro Rosso / Racing Bulls years. Second, he had top-team experience from Ferrari. Third, he carried regulatory and safety credibility from the FIA. That mix is unusual — most team principals are either commercial/political operators, pure engineers, or ex-drivers, whereas Mekies is closer to an engineering-governance hybrid. He also represented continuity without being Horner: Red Bull could promote someone already inside its wider structure while still signalling a leadership reset. ⁶

Bottom line

Laurent Mekies is a French motorsport engineer turned F1 executive whose career runs through almost every layer of modern Formula 1: small-team engineering, Red Bull's junior-team structure, FIA governance, Ferrari race management, and now the top job at Red Bull Racing. His challenge is huge — maintain Red Bull's elite standard after Christian Horner, keep Max Verstappen and the technical organisation aligned, and navigate the 2026 rules reset.