Verstappen victory in Malaysia, RBR team principal Mekies: “Max is simply untouchable”

A resounding triumph at the Bahrain Grand Prix, now a guest at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia: Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing’s first victory since Abu Dhabi 2025, the team’s first victory as an engine manufacturer in partnership with Ford, and Ford’s first F1 victory since Giancarlo Fisichella in Brazil in 2003!

Max Verstappen made his mark on this Malaysian round following the Bahrain Grand Prix; he was quick right from the first lap on this wonderful circuit, where Formula 1 was racing for the first time since 2017.

Red Bull Racing team principal Laurent Mekies is, of course, over the moon. The 49-year-old Frenchman says: “Max was simply unbeatable this weekend – yet again. We’ve been able to pick up the pace over the last few Grand Prix weekends – Monza, Madrid, Baku – they were all good, solid races. We managed to chip away at the gap to the front, but what we were missing was that victory.”

“Back in Baku, Verstappen had finished just behind the winner, Russell, and we sensed that something was in the air. And when we arrived here in Malaysia, the car was competitive right from the first lap.”

“Nevertheless, we still had plenty of question marks ahead of the Grand Prix. We didn’t know what the weather would be like, we didn’t know how bad the tyre wear would be, and we didn’t know what our rivals had up their sleeves.”

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“But in the end, everything went well; we managed to secure our first win of the season, Max was in a class of his own, and our first victory as an engine manufacturer in partnership with Ford – we’ll never forget that.”

“Winning in our first year as an engine manufacturer is a fantastic testament to our entire team; I’m immensely proud of all the staff who’ve worked so hard to achieve this result.”

“The victory feels so good partly because we’d struggled with the car at the start of the season, and things weren’t running smoothly with the engine either. But we managed to make the car faster and faster, and today we can rightly claim – we were the best out there.”

Red Bull Racing started the race on intermediate tyres, just like Mercedes. And unlike Ferrari and McLaren, who tried their luck on slicks. Which was a mistake.

Then Max Verstappen was seen on soft tyres, which some considered risky due to the high tyre wear on the Malaysian circuit.

Laurent Mekies says: “We realised very early on that we were getting on well with the soft tyres. To be precise, we were so confident that on Friday evening we returned a set of hard tyres to Pirelli and opted for another set of softs. This was based on very good endurance runs. We were reasonably confident in our decision.”

“The only slight annoyance is that we had to relinquish Isack Hadjar’s third place towards the end of the race. Isack was right at the start, on his way to the grid alongside the track, and it seems the underbody was damaged in the process. We’ll need to take a closer look at that.”