Belgian GP underscores Red Bull's progress - Mekies

Isack Hadjar produced his best race for Red Bull as the team displayed its progress compared to the frontrunners at the Belgian Grand Prix, according to team principal Laurent Mekies.

Red Bull opted to take a new power unit in Hadjar’s car at Spa-Francorchamps, leaving him starting from 21st place and facing a tough climb towards the points. After starting on hard tires and pitting twice under an early safety car to fulfill the requirement to run two different compounds, Hadjar completed the rest of the race on a set of hards to finish sixth and extend a run of six consecutive top-six results.

“I think it is his best race with us, no question,” Mekies said. “Honestly, it's not only a spike, he’s been just a little bit better every single race for speed. So he's bringing some speed every time he's driving. [Belgium] is another step. This weekend is another step because he was very, very fast from FP1.

“And yes, we've put him on a slightly unusual strategy, which in the end, with the timing of the VSC also offered him the possibility to beat Lando [Norris] fundamentally. So it was good. It was very, very strong. His pace was top three pace. So very, very happy with his progress.”

With Max Verstappen third in Belgium, Mekies says the progress Red Bull has made is clear, but that it also still showing where it is playing catch-up in terms of experience as a new power unit manufacturer.

“I still think we are still suffering here on an energy starved track. We will soon find out if Budapest gives us a bit of an upside or not,” said Mekies. “Even if you simply look at it from the fact that you need to have a compromise between the cornering speed and the straight line speed - for example, Max, with everything he's able to bring into the cornering speed, you don't get as much benefit if you have a trade-off with the next straight.

“So it's what it is. We are trying to progress on our side. We have some homework to do to progress on this sort of track, as well. We don't think we have discovered all the tricks – I say that in a good way, all the good tricks – that are needed to be very, very strong on this sort of track for energy management. But everybody is working very hard. It’s a year one characteristic.”

One year on from becoming team principal at Red Bull, Mekies says his understanding of the team’s strengths and abilities have only grown, and suggests its achievements over the past 12 months have been underappreciated.

“The team is an incredible team. It's one year after I said the same thing a year ago: it's a privilege to be with such a group,” he said. “I take three examples. Look at the turnaround that the team has done last year. It's something that's rarely seen in the sport.

“We had just concluded Abu Dhabi on this incredible turnaround, and then we had the countdown of the power unit going in front of all of us, and the guys have been doing a phenomenal job to put us in a position to fight.

“And of course, you push very, very late last year. You come up with your own power unit. We did start further back – probably more than a second off, as we discussed many times here – and the competition was not going to wait for us, but here we are. Ten or 11 races on, and the best part of that second is gone.

“We are in the most difficult part of the last two or three tenths. It still makes a big difference, because we now, I think, can say that we can fight for podium on pretty much all tracks, or at least in the last three tracks we could fight for podium, which is a massive step forward.

“But we are not here for podiums and now the focus is on, as a group - chassis plus PU - how do we extract those two or three tenths against competition, which will be the most difficult part.”