Red Bull's first Formula 1 race weekend without Christian Horner at the helm has begun and the impact of its seismic change is starting to become clear, even though there are some big unanswered questions.
It is all change for one of F1's most successful teams as of the Belgian Grand Prix, where Laurent Mekies is in charge of Red Bull Racing immediately after Horner was removed from his operational duties following the previous race at Silverstone.
With Red Bull's F1 team barely acknowledging Horner's exit so far, and Red Bull headquarters refusing to elaborate or discuss its action, there are still a lot unknowns about what exactly led to this decision.
But the impact of it is already being seen at Spa - where we are starting to hear more from people at the heart of Red Bull, including star driver Max Verstappen.
What Verstappen makes of the change
Verstappen had an open media session at Spa on Thursday, which was inevitably very well-attended. And Verstappen revelled in his usual approach: expansive sometimes, dismissive other times, and very happy to say nothing if he wanted to.
He made sure to reference Horner’s longevity, and said his relationship will be unchanged with what he called his "second family", but that was as warm as it got and he was careful not to pass any specific opinion on what Red Bull's shareholders have decided to do. "Time will tell," he said whenever he was asked a variant of 'Is this the right move?'.
"The last 1.5 years have not gone how we would've liked," Verstappen admitted. "And management decided they wanted to steer the ship in a different direction, probably.
"Everyone else has to agree to that and look forward. And I am looking forward.
"Looking back doesn't make sense, it's not going to make you faster."
What was interesting is that while team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was told of the decision by Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko, Verstappen said he had a conversation with "the shareholders" himself. Oliver Mintzlaff, Red Bull's CEO of corporate projects and new investments, has been the reference for Verstappen throughout all of this.
Again, Verstappen would not elaborate on specifics. He said what was discussed would stay between them, and he would not even give his opinion on the rationale or plan that was outlined to him.
But he opened up a little on other matters. Verstappen came across genuinely quite excited to just get down to work, and it was impossible not to think that was linked to the fact that Red Bull might have a little more stability and a little less in-fighting now.
The only definite position Verstappen took on anything was that it will not impact his decision over how long he stays at Red Bull. Which maybe offers little in isolation, but if true, it is quite significant.
It speaks to the long-held belief that the number one thing for Verstappen is car performance, and he really does not care for politics and in-fighting. "The only thing that matters is that we work on the car and make it as fast as we can make it," he said.
The possibility of Verstappen leaving, and Red Bull doing whatever it can to keep him, has been raised as a factor in Horner being dropped. That may be because of very real tensions with Verstappen's father, Jos, potential doubts within the Verstappen camp about the decline in performance and exodus of top staff under Horner's leadership, or just the sum of all the noise and disturbance around the team in the last 18 months.
Clearly Verstappen's more interested in the Red Bull roadmap to arrest its decline and become a title-winning force again. That seems to have been sold to him - not that he will say to what extent, or to what effect.
Red Bull HQ's walls are up
The move to oust Horner - though he remains an employee for now - was made by Red Bull's operational decision-makers in Austria, with input from Marko.
When it was announced, requests for comment were diverted from Red Bull Racing to Red Bull GmbH. Mintzlaff was the man quoted. It was all handled on that side. Mintzlaff and Marko have also reportedly addressed the team directly.
Since then, nothing. At least not public-facing. Not even something produced internally that could have been completely controlled to ensure the message was exactly as desired. The strongest indication for why is that the legal situation - with Horner's full exit yet to be arranged - is sensitive.
But the 'why?', and 'why now?' remain officially unanswered, as does 'how will Red Bull structure the F1 team's various departments that were ultimately run by Horner?' and also whether Marko will attempt to reclaim more control of the junior programme, which Horner was pleased to have handed over the running of to Guillaume Rocquelin.
So 'say nothing' is understood to have been a 'strategy' driven by Red Bull centrally. Mintzlaff is expected to be at Spa on Friday but does not want to speak to the media, and minimal messaging seems to have passed on internally.
That is inevitably reflected in what the team can say too. Red Bull lost its F1 director of communications as part of the Horner exit, and he is yet to be directly replaced, but off-record briefings are automatically restricted anyway if there is little information available internally.
The result is that Red Bull's F1 team is still dealing with the fallout of Horner's exit both internally and externally. It was blindsided by the news, with many only finding out on the morning of Horner's exit speech at the factory or just before.
And Red Bull's parent company itself is, inadvertently or not, giving off a sense it does not have much of a plan because nothing will be disclosed for now; not just about Horner leaving specifically, but very much at all.
Mekies is due to speak in Friday's press conference but if the Red Bull decree is to say nothing, he will not elaborate much - not that it is really his place to, given he did not make the call, he is just the successor.
What remains to be seen - or heard - until then is whether Marko, never one to adhere to being gagged at all, is capable of remaining silent: or if the party line, for once, will come from him. He has already given at least one interview in advance of the weekend, with Austrian publication Kleine Zeitung.
Though it was devoid of anything groundbreaking, Marko's claim that "the changes are like football, if things don't work out, the coach simply has to go" might be a hint that Mintzlaff has taken some inspiration from how Red Bull runs its Leipzig and Salzburg clubs: as a business, operated on Red Bull's behalf, in the Red Bull way, by day-to-day managers who are expendable if the results are not to Red Bull's satisfaction.
That seems to be the blueprint for its F1 team's future, even if Red Bull will not yet say so itself.
How Mekies works + reduced responsibilities
More telling from Marko was a claim that Mekies is immediately more focused on the race team than Horner and "is less involved in other departments".
"It's crucial that his responsibilities as team principal have been reduced compared to Horner's," said Marko.
Ex-Racing Bulls team principal Mekies has been in the Red Bull job for a couple of weeks now and Red Bull released imagery of him at a filming day at Silverstone as soon as he switched roles.
But at Spa he is on public Red Bull duty for the first time so it was no surprise to see him swamped by cameras on arrival on Thursday.
Like Horner was outside of the Friday-Sunday grand prix weekend grind, Mekies was in civvies rather than team gear when he arrived - which made for a minor shock to the system for those of us so used to seeing Mekies bound around the paddock as one of the most affable and available senior members of staff in F1.
But he was soon in Red Bull 'uniform', which was more familiar from his Racing Bulls era, even on Thursdays, and really it's simply Mekies being at the track on media day that was telling.
It speaks to how Mekies intends to work. Horner tended to avoid such an early arrival most of the time and, while this could just be dismissed as Mekies needing to learn a lot about how Red Bull works, the fact he was at the track early in his previous role suggests it is likely to be repeated.
Mekies is already shifting the way Red Bull approaches certain things, meeting with different departments on Thursday in a way that did not happen previously. With a background in engineering, he is known to be someone very keen to get as much information as possible. This has already been noticed by some Red Bull people new to working with him.
And his former driver Liam Lawson, who spent two races with Red Bull at the start of 2025 before being dropped, said he believes Mekies "brings a lot with him" - and raised the point about being at the track on Thursdays himself.
"Something that Laurent has been very, very good at is leading the team and having everybody around him, having the motivation very high and the work ethic very high in the team," said Lawson.
"He was very good for that. He worked very, very hard. He was always here on a Thursday. Every single race weekend he is here on a Thursday, probably one of the first guys to arrive, I guess to show sort of everybody in the team that it's very important."
What drivers think about their new boss
Mekies has already had several meetings with Verstappen, who said his new team boss has had two "quite intense" weeks before his first race.
Verstappen said he has a good impression of Mekies, who he called "incredibly motivated".
"I like that," Verstappen said. "You can see the fire - of course he's new in the role, but it's exciting."
Other standout remarks were that Mekies is "a very nice guy" and "very clever" - and Verstappen reckons Mekies' experience across multiple F1 teams and the FIA could be "helpful". In summary, there were no red flags that Verstappen doubts the appointment.
While Mekies is new to Verstappen, Tsunoda knows him well. Mekies spoke very well of the young Japanese driver when they were at Racing Bulls together, and privately Tsunoda's allies hold Mekies in extremely high regard.
It is not that Tsunoda lacked support previously - Horner was known to have been very supportive and Tsunoda was happy with the backing he got. Tsunoda suggested as much in revealing on Thursday that he had received a message from Horner to "show what you can do!" a day earlier.
But in Mekies, there is someone who has believed in Tsunoda for a long time, who knows very well how Tsunoda works, and who is the kind of person to put an arm around a driver's shoulder.
In short, Mekies' arrival could be a big psychological boost for Tsunoda, as well as an ally who could fight his corner than Horner may have ultimately been minded to.
"We bond really well," Tsunoda said of his relationship with Mekies. "We had a good start of the year [when Tsunoda was at Racing Bulls] in terms of performance. And we had a lot of chats in the last few months.
Asked what Mekies' strengths are as a leader, he added: "He's not really yet changing anything. It's still probably dynamics...probably he will see next few races and see what he can do?
"[If we know one thing] at least, it's we know that we have a very good relationship. I can chat and I don't have to really adapt to the relationship or create relationships, which is good.
"I just came into the paddock with him and had a normal conversation. So yeah, it feels like back to VCARB [Racing Bulls days] but it's not, you know, it's a different jersey."
