Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies expects Mexico City to create a one-off pecking order and details wind tunnel timeline

By Vancouver Television Sports Desk

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies expects the Mexico City Grand Prix to produce a “one-off” competitive order, citing the unusual demands that the circuit’s high elevation can place on both power-unit performance and cooling. Speaking at a Friday press conference at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez after FP1, Mekies said the thin air more than 2 km above sea level may force teams into compromises that affect reliability-focused decisions as the weekend unfolds.

Mekies also addressed a power-unit problem during FP1 involving Isack Hadjar. He said Red Bull lost a portion of track time when Hadjar had a PU issue, but added that the team “did a very good job” to get him back on track, emphasizing that the problem was not linked to altitude. “I think there have been no unforeseen issues so far related to the altitude,” Mekies said when asked whether elevation had significantly impacted Red Bull’s power unit.

While the incident was not attributed to altitude, Mekies said the wider racing conditions still have the potential to change the pecking order compared with previous rounds. In his view, both the power unit’s behaviour in the thinner air and the cooling trade-offs needed to keep the car within safe operating limits could make the weekend atypical. “Both in terms of PU for the altitude and with all the compromises we are all having to make on the cooling side, we expect that this race could be a one-off in terms of pecking order,” he said.

Mekies stressed that teams will not necessarily operate at optimum settings across the whole system during Mexico. He described a balancing act between performance and reliability, noting that the power unit must be managed for altitude while the chassis side must be managed for temperature. “In many respects everybody will not be operating at the optimum this weekend – PU side for the altitude, chassis side for the temperature,” he said. “We are all ready to make some compromises to make sure our car can survive and our PU can survive in these conditions.”

The Red Bull leader said it is too early to know whether the team will have a clear advantage or deficit in Mexico, pointing to the amount of lap time that remains available across both the power-unit and chassis domains. “We don’t really have an idea whether we will have an advantage or a deficit this weekend. Only time will tell. But there is a fair amount of lap time, both on the PU side and the chassis side, that is in the game this weekend,” he added.

Beyond this weekend, Mekies provided a long-awaited update on Red Bull’s new wind tunnel, a project intended to replace the team’s ageing facility in Bedford. He said the state-of-the-art tunnel is being developed at Red Bull’s Milton Keynes headquarters, and that it is expected to become operational at some point during 2027, with performance impact most likely felt during the latter part of the 2027 car’s development and throughout the 2028 car program.

Mekies said that while the current wind tunnel has “ultimately been producing extraordinary results,” it is “most likely the oldest one on the grid.” He argued that transitioning to a modern facility should unlock potential, even if benefits will not appear instantly when the equipment is switched on. “It’s not going to come as soon as we switch everything on, but it’s certainly going to unlock potential and give the talented people in the aero department another way to express their ideas,” he said.

On timing, Mekies acknowledged the project is not yet ready to come online and depends on calibration and commissioning work. “It’s something that will come online sometime during next season,” he said, adding that the exact quarter is still under review. He suggested it will most likely align with the second half of the 2027 car cycle and “hopefully for most of the 2028 car,” while also noting that the schedule will be determined by how much time is needed to complete calibration and commissioning.

The wind tunnel update follows earlier remarks from Max Verstappen about limitations of the current facility, with Mekies now providing the clearest indication yet of when Red Bull expects the new installation to be operational and begin influencing car development.