Red Bull Racing’s Secret Weapon? An Engineer Who Treats Workflows Like Lap Times

When Laurent Mekies stepped into the principal role at Red Bull’s F1 team just four months ago, many expected a high-profile leader with media sizzle. Instead they got a veteran engineer who treats every internal process with the exactitude of a lap on the Monza straight. ([turn0search0])

Mekies spent years in the technical trenches—from race engineer to safety director at the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, then back to Red Bull’s junior outfit—before taking the helm of its main squad. He believes that to win you must continuously reduce “noise”: the wasted minutes, the swap-overs and the login bottlenecks that build up behind the scenes. ([turn0search0])

One standout example: Red Bull’s partnership with 1Password. On the surface, it may look like typical security software. But Mekies argues that when every second counts—even logging in and out of systems across track, factory and simulator—the friction reduction becomes a competitive edge. “We go faster today in that login/logout than what we were doing without that security level,” he says. ([turn0search0])

Culture and people matter just as much as tech. Mekies insists that winning is not about him—it’s about enabling the 2,000-plus staff in Milton Keynes and beyond. “Your first thoughts are for the 2,000 people back in the factories who have never given up,” he says. Development decisions reflect this mindset: instead of shifting focus to next year’s rules mid-season, he chose to rally the team around the 2025 car and understand what was failing. That risky call paid off. ([turn0search0])

Now RED BULL is not just aiming to defend titles—it’s building its own power unit in partnership with Ford for 2026. Mekies calls that project a “crazy adventure”—one that only a team willing to optimize every workflow, big and small, can tackle. “We are going to compete against people who have been manufacturing F1 engines for 90 years,” he notes, adding: “That’s how big it is for us.” ([turn0search0])

In short, Red Bull’s secret weapon isn’t just on the track—it’s in the processes, the log-ins, the wind-tunnel swaps. When workflows are as finely engineered as aerodynamics, competitive advantage gets multiplied.