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Laurent Mekies

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Laurent Mekies
Mekies at the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix
Born (1977-04-28) 28 April 1977 (age 48)
Tours, Centre-Val de Loire, France
Alma mater
Occupations
  • Motorsport executive
  • motorsport administrator
  • engineer
Employers
Title

Laurent Philippe Mekies (born 28 April 1977)[1] is a French motorsport executive, administrator, and engineer. Since July 2025, Mekies has served as team principal and CEO of Red Bull in Formula One; he previously served as team principal of Racing Bulls.

Mekies began his career at Arrows before working as a race engineer at Minardi. He was promoted to chief engineer at Toro Rosso prior to becoming the safety director and, later, deputy race director at the FIA. Prior to his time with Red Bull GmbH, he served as sporting director and deputy team principal at Ferrari from 2018 to 2023.

Career

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Mekies graduated from Loughborough University after obtaining a master's degree from the fr:École supérieure des techniques aéronautiques et de construction automobile (ESTACA) in Paris. In 2000, he started his career at Asiatech in Formula Three before entering Formula One, working for Arrows. He moved to Minardi in the following years, where he worked as the race engineer for Mark Webber, Justin Wilson, Zsolt Baumgartner and Christijan Albers.

When the team was acquired by the Austrian energy drink maker Red Bull and renamed as Scuderia Toro Rosso at the end of 2005, he was promoted to be the team's chief engineer.[2]

Mekies left the Faenza-based team to join the FIA in 2014 as safety director and was appointed F1 deputy race director in 2017.[3] He moved to Scuderia Ferrari in September 2018 as sporting director.[4] He was put in charge of the Track and Performance department in 2019 before being appointed as Deputy Team Principal and Racing Director of Ferrari in January 2021.[5]

On 27 July 2023, it was announced that Mekies would leave his job as Racing Director for Ferrari at the end of the week, not being in attendance for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps as a result. Diego Ioverno took over Mekies' duties as sporting director.[6] He began his tenure as the Team Principal for RB Formula One Team at the start of the 2024 season, before replacing Christian Horner as Chief Executive Officer and Team Principal of Red Bull Racing, following his sacking on 9 July 2025.[7]

References

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  1. ^ "Laurent Philippe Mekies, Faenza, Italy". www.northdata.com. Retrieved 16 April 2025.
  2. ^ Cutler, Andrew (29 May 2012). "Laurent Mekies". f1network.net. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  3. ^ Szymkiewicz, Mateusz (5 July 2016). "Herbie Blash ustąpi z roli zastępcy dyrektora wyścigów po sezonie 2016". f1wm.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  4. ^ Piórkowski, Nataniel (14 March 2018). "Laurent Mekies odejdzie z FIA i dołączy do Ferrari". f1wm.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  5. ^ "Laurent Mekies". Ferrari. Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  6. ^ Cleeren, Filip (27 July 2023). "Ferrari appoints new F1 sporting director as Mekies departs". www.autosport.com.
  7. ^ "Horner to exit Red Bull with immediate effect as Mekies takes over as CEO". Formula1.com. Formula One Group. 9 July 2025. Retrieved 9 July 2025.


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