Laurent Mekies

He completely understands the complex dynamics of a Formula One car and of a Formula One team.

You leave him a few hours of freedom, he will go and race on this simulator.

You give him a few days of freedom, he will go and race whatever he can find on the planet.

And having somebody like that, that can...

support you driving the car development, especially through new regulations like the one we have today, is a huge advantage.

I'm sure he could be an excellent team principal one day, and that probably applies to many other different jobs in motorsport.

You know, Max has this... I still didn't decide if it is a conscious or unconscious skills that he has, but he has this natural way to get people around him to understand what is important for him in the car and what is, according to him, the biggest lap time reservoir that...

untapped around him.

And he knows that when he speaks into a debriefing, he not only have the 30 engineers around him in the room, but also all the ones that are connected back in the factory in Milton Keynes.

And he has his natural way to drag everyone behind him and to get people to give the 101%.

It's something to be fast in the car.

It's something else to be outside of the car and to manage to get your team, your people to give their very best in trying to understand and to solve the limitations that you have.

And it's very nice to say now in a quiet room, but for him to be able to do that,

a few minutes after he's driving the car, and it can be a qualifying session, it can be a race that could have had a bad or a good outcome, and to be able to do that with the level of discipline he has, with the level of cold feedback he's able to give, is outstanding.

And, you know, if you come to one of the debriefings we have after our sessions, after qualifying or after the race, you will not be able to understand from his tone of voice

if it was a win or if it was a DNF that you won't forget about.

Because he's already moved on to the next race.

Because he will describe it with the same intensity, because he will analyze the issue and the limitations with the same discipline.

whether he has won the race or whether he has been outperformed by competition.

You know, it's both really.