Tag: Laurent Mekies

Mekies willing to play the long game with VCARB

Visa Cash App RB team principal Laurent Mekies says a slow start to the season could be on the cards as the team looks to put strong foundations in place for the future. The former AlphaTauri team – now known as VCARB – showed a clear step forward …

Visa Cash App RB team principal Laurent Mekies says a slow start to the season could be on the cards as the team looks to put strong foundations in place for the future.

The former AlphaTauri team – now known as VCARB – showed a clear step forward late in 2023 with upgrades that helped it surge from bottom of the constructors’ championship to finish eighth and threaten for seventh. Despite that momentum, Mekies says the rebranded team has a lot of departments it needs to develop and is not afraid of starting the season towards the back of the field once again.

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“My job so far has been about understanding the team, it’s about understanding the people, and it’s about understanding where our strengths and weaknesses are,” Mekies told RACER. “It’s very much the activity of this first weeks, and then once you do that you then start together to reinforce the team in all the areas where you feel a step is needed.”

“The truth is we want to see improvements in every single area, and we think this is how we will achieve a real step in competitiveness. So it’s not the shortest route but we feel it is a route that will take us consistently to the sharp end of the midfield, where we want to compete.

“We have the approach to build these foundations – it may take us a bit of time and it may mean that the first part of the season is a bit more difficult, but we feel it is the right approach if we want to be serious about our mid-term targets.”

Mekies himself brings with him recent experience from a front-running team in the form of Ferrari, but says he has been eager to get started at VCARB given the potential the refreshed team has.

“It has been a long wait, with the gardening leave. And then it’s been some incredible weeks starting with the team here. It’s about the birth of a new team – that’s how we look at it. It’s very concrete, and of course it’s a very special new team because it’s one that’s going to be built on an incredible basis and an incredible history that we proud of. But equally we look at it with the freshness of a brand new team.”

New additions will take VCARB to the next level – Mekies

Visa Cash App RB team principal Laurent Mekies believes the hiring of three experienced senior personnel will help take the team to the next level in Formula 1. Mekies himself has only started work ahead to the 2024 season after joining the former …

Visa Cash App RB team principal Laurent Mekies believes the hiring of three experienced senior personnel will help take the team to the next level in Formula 1.

Mekies himself has only started work ahead to the 2024 season after joining the former AlphaTauri team as team principal from Ferrari, and after the new team name was confirmed last week there have been further key figures announced. Tim Goss will join as chief technical officer in October following as spell as FIA technical director and at McLaren, while former Red Bull, McLaren and Lotus engineer Guillaume Cattelani is also bolstering the technical team and Alan Permane arrives as racing director.

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“The appointments of Tim, Guillaume and Alan add a vast amount of winning expertise to the team, and I have no doubt that they will help take the team to the next level in F1,” Mekies said. 

“We already have a very strong and hugely experienced group at the team and bringing onboard highly-skilled individuals like Tim, Guillaume and Alan will boost our capability and help us meet the highest technical standards at Visa Cash App RB F1 Team, both at the factory and at the track.”

Mekies reports to Visa Cash App RB CEO Peter Bayer, who believes the additions are central to the future structure that he wants the team to take on within F1.

“These appointments represent a strong step forward for Visa Cash App RB,” Bayer said. “The appointments of Guillaume and Alan will boost capability in design and development of our cars and in performance at the track. Then, with Tim’s arrival in October, we will have put in place the key elements of a structure designed to take us on the next phase of our journey and ensure the long-term success of the team.”

While Cattelani and Permane are expected to start work immediately, Goss is unable to do so until October due to rules governing FIA members moving into team positions, given their potential exposure to future regulations and rival team information. 

Mekies leaves Ferrari for AlphaTauri

Ferrari has confirmed sporting director Laurent Mekies is leaving the team this week in order to take up the role of team principal at AlphaTauri. Mekies was named as the future team principal at his former team earlier this year, but an agreement …

Ferrari has confirmed sporting director Laurent Mekies is leaving the team this week in order to take up the role of team principal at AlphaTauri.

Mekies was named as the future team principal at his former team earlier this year, but an agreement had not yet been reached with Ferrari in regards to his release and start date. In an announcement ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, Ferrari paid tribute to the racing director after four and a half seasons, saying “the entire team thanks him for his great contribution during those years.”

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As part of the restructuring that follows Mekies’ departure, Ferrari outlined the changes that will be in place at Spa-Francorchamps, with Mekies not attending the race.

“As from the Belgian Grand Prix, part of Laurent’s duties on the pitwall will be carried out by Diego Ioverno, who takes on the role of sporting director,” a team statement read. “He will be responsible for all sporting matters, as well as liaising with the FIA. Ioverno is a veteran member of the Scuderia having worked in Maranello for the past 23 years.”

AlphaTauri has yet to confirm when Mekies will start work at Faenza, having previously said current team principal Franz Tost will remain involved to oversee the transition at the end of this season.

Leaks forced early exit announcement – Tost

Franz Tost says AlphaTauri was forced to announce its acquisition of Laurent Mekies earlier than anticipated because the news had begun to leak in the Italian media. AlphaTauri issued a press release on the eve of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend …

Franz Tost says AlphaTauri was forced to announce its acquisition of Laurent Mekies earlier than anticipated because the news had begun to leak in the Italian media.

AlphaTauri issued a press release on the eve of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend announcing that Tost would step down as team principal at the end of the season to make way for current Ferrari racing director Mekies, with Peter Bayer taking up the CEO role.

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The press release came as a surprise to Ferrari principal Frederic Vasseur, who said his team wasn’t yet ready to commit to releasing the French engineer.

“If you speak about time line, I think [AlphaTauri] was a bit aggressive in their press release,” Vasseur said. “We have a long-term contract with Laurent and now we have to discuss the details.

“We have to find the best solution for Ferrari. When he’ll leave, when he’ll move to [AlphaTauri], it will be discussed at the end of the collaboration.”

Though rumors of changes to key Ferrari positions have been rife since Mattia Binotto resigned as team principal at the end of last year, there was little sign that any moves would lead up the road to AlphaTauri despite parallel speculation that Red Bull was preparing to make major changes in Faenza.

It wasn’t until last week that the Italian media caught wind that Mekies was in the frame to take the reins from Tost.

“The announcement in truth was not planned to come up now,” Tost confirmed. “This was planned much later, but … there were some leaks in the press.

“I didn’t want to come here and to tell all of you, ‘No, I don’t know anything’, because it’s not the way of how we are working.

“If you read in the press those rumors, I could say now, ‘I don’t comment on rumors’, but you are all clever, I respect all of you, I don’t want to be here and to tell you useless lies.”

Tost said the situation had moved so quickly that even he was caught by surprise when the press release went out, so he understood why Ferrari might have been put offside by the sudden announcement.

Mekies (right) will replace Tost at AlphaTauri. Sam Bloxham/Motorsport Images

“It was planned at a later time in the year. Now it’s out and of course I can imagine that some people are not happy about this,” he said, though he didn’t expect the shock to disrupt Mekies’s exit from Ferrari.

“That’s between Laurent and Fred, and then of course Red Bull will take a major role in this,” Tost said of negotiations to extract Mekies from Maranello. “I think that

Oliver Mintzlaff (Red Bull CEO of corporate projects and new investments) will talk to the CEO from Ferrari and find a solution.”

AlphaTauri’s impending management restructure would appear to put to bed speculation that Red Bull might move the team to the UK to align more closely with Red Bull Racing in Milton Keynes or that the Faenza squad might be sold entirely.

Those rumors had started when Mintzlaff took control of Red Bull’s motorsport investments following the death of Dietrich Mateschitz late last year.

However, Tost denied the shake-up had anything to do with new direction from management, insisting that he had decided to step aside long before Mateschitz’s death.

“This has nothing to do with the passing away,” he said. “This decision was beforehand.

“It was my decision, and it started already two years ago, discussed it also with Dietrich Mateschitz in those days.

“Because I’m now 67 years old … and I made it clear that at 70, I would not be any more in the pit lane. This I made very clear.

“And now I’m going into the 70s, it’s time to say goodbye.

“Especially now with the solution with Peter Bayer as CEO and Laurent Mekies, we have two fantastic people who will replace me. I think it’s the best time to go out from Formula 1.”

PT Autosport Aspiring Driver Shootout set for August

PT Autosport continues to receive applications for its second annual Aspiring Driver Shootout, to be held August 1-3 at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, N.J. The team is dedicated to increasing the presence of junior drivers in the …

PT Autosport continues to receive applications for its second annual Aspiring Driver Shootout, to be held August 1-3 at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, N.J.

The team is dedicated to increasing the presence of junior drivers in the motorsports industry that come from diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds. Paramount to this mission is creating career development opportunities and forming an educational, competitive, and supportive environment for all team members, allowing them to grow and learn.

PT Autosport has formed a multi-tiered development program that begins with the Aspiring Driver Shootout. The winner will earn a $100,000 racing partnership and join the team’s junior racing program, progressing to an advanced racing series within the team or with one of the team’s operational partners. Ultimately, the goal will be for each driver to graduate to the team’s professional level program, racing in the Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America series – and beyond.

Team founder and owner Jeph Dais joined the Order of DeMolay (a top international youth leadership organization) when he was 12 years old and saw firsthand the positive effects of investing in deserving young people of diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds. Joining forces with longtime motorsports team executive Jason Myers and driver Alex Sedgwick, PT Autosport is dedicated to giving opportunities to those that otherwise would not have that opportunity and to helping the individuals that we partner with to make their dream of becoming a professional in the motorsports industry come true.

“We’re really positive about this year’s shootout applications,” said Myers, PT Autosport team principal. “We have refined the process and given ourselves a little more time to hopefully reach some of the best candidates out there. We’re not looking for people that are already racing drivers – we’re looking for people who might not have known this was even an option they could pursue, but who dream of a racing career. We’ve been steadily building awareness and exposure, with more applications coming every day, so we’re quite positive that this year is going to be even more successful that our inaugural shootout last year.”

2022 Shootout winner Henry Drury has been working with the team on marketing and digital media efforts while recovering from spinal surgery, following an injury incurred while pursuing a career as an Olympic figure skater. The 22-year-old Londoner will return to racing this summer in the team’s junior racing program.

“As someone who’s been working flat-out for the last five years on making a racing career possible and searching for funding, I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity that PT Autosport has given me, and to finally be in a position to chase my dream of racing,” said Drury. “I have a delayed start to my season following my surgery, but in the meantime, I’m learning as much as I can from watching Alex at work and maximizing my recovery to hit the ground running once I’m cleared to start driving. I can’t wait to get back behind the wheel and prove that the team made the right choice, as well as using my season to prove to others with spine injuries that there is still hope after suffering a life-altering injury.”

The team’s flagship racing program, the Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North Americas, is off to a flying start. PT Autosport has teamed up with 2022 series champions JDX Racing, with Sedgwick, who also serves as the team’s driver development director, behind the wheel. Sedgwick and the team have earned three top eight finishes in the first four races of the season, including a fifth-place finish at the recent Long Beach Grand Prix. But for Sedgwick, the importance of this season is as much off-track as on-track.

“I’m very excited about what we have the potential to build,” said Sedgwick. “With my experience as a driver coming through the ranks ‘the hard way,’ with no personal funding, I feel it places me in a very unique scenario to be able to help identify and develop those who have what it takes to make a career in motorsport.”

Applications for the 2023 PT Autosport Aspiring Driver Shootout are open until May 15, with the Shootout taking place August 1 to August 3 at NJMP. 888 applications slots are available, with 88 drivers chosen after due diligence. Of those 88, 12 drivers between the age of 18 and 23 will have the opportunity to participate in a competition measuring their fitness, media, interview, problem-solving, teamwork, and racecraft skills. They will vie for the $100,000 driver partnership program which will provide support for the 2024 & 2025 seasons, with awards also going to second and third place (fourth, fifth and sixth place finishers will earn guaranteed entry as a competitor in the 2024 Aspiring Driver Shootout).

PT Autosport’s top tier program takes to the track next week, as the Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America races alongside Formula 1 at the F1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix. Race one takes the green flag Saturday, May 6 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, with race two Sunday at 12:25pm The race will be broadcast live in the U.S., on IMSA.tv, the NBC Peacock streaming app and PorscheCarreraCup.us.

PT Autosport is supported by JDX Racing partners Byers/Porsche Columbus, Renier Construction, PDCA Inc., and Revamp Marketing.

Visit www.DriverShootout.com or www.PTAutosport.com for more info and follow @pt_autosport on Instagram for updates.