“I always wanted to stay”
Despite a disappointing weekend for Max Verstappen and the entire Red Bull team at Zandvoort, the principal of the Austrian team achieved the most important result during the Dutch weekend: Max Verstappen’s signature on the agreement extending the Dutchman’s contract with the Milton Keynes team until the end of the 2030 season. A signature that, from the outside, seemed anything but easy to obtain, given the numerous rumors suggesting Verstappen’s departure from his historic team at the end of this championship.
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Speaking with the site F1.com, Mekies told a very different truth. Revealing some behind-the-scenes details of the negotiation, the former Ferrari executive revealed how Verstappen’s intention was always to renew with his team, even though he was understandably frustrated by the lack of results in the first part of the season. “The truth is that Max has always said he wanted to stay at Red Bull – said Mekies – he told us this from the first renewal conversations to the last. When we finally agreed on everything, he told me: ‘I told you I wanted to stay!’“
Brutal honesty
“Of course, we had a complicated first part of the season with the new regulations and our car was not competitive at the start of the year – admitted the French manager – obviously we fought until the last for the title last year, so we had our moments of frustration, but that’s because we are united by a single desire to win“.
Verstappen in front of the cameras did not hesitate to explicitly and quite harshly criticize the team in certain situations, making public his frustrations about the lack of performance of the RB22. However, this type of attitude, at least apparently, does not seem to bother Mekies, on the contrary: “We have only one goal: to win. So, every time we don’t win, we will be – and remain – brutally honest with each other. We will challenge each other and express our frustrations, because that’s how we all feel as competitors, and that’s what drives us to get out of bed every day“, Mekies concluded.
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