Laurent Mekies

I don't think...

leadership style matters.

You can find up and down the pit lane and in any business, very, very different style of leadership.

I think what matters is that as a leader, that you take care of your people, that you put them in the heart of the project, and that you get them the environment for them to express this talent.

And that's what matters.

How you do that, in which style do you do that, really doesn't, only the results will tell.

It made me feel so happy for the girls and the guys in the team because they had such a difficult start of the season last year.

The car was not performing at the level they were hoping.

Pressure was high.

You come to the middle of the seasons and you get a new boss.

There were all the reasons in the world with the new regulations coming for 2026, with the new power unit projects, there were all the reasons in the world to say, well, you know what, let's turn the page.

25 did not work.

Let's concentrate on 26.

You had really, you would have been mad to do anything differently, to want to do things differently.

The truth is, Tom, nobody wanted to do that in Milton Keynes.

Nobody wanted to turn the page.

They all wanted to get to the bottom of that 25 car, get to the bottom of what didn't work to the level expected, and turn things around.

And yes, they knew there would be a price to pay for later, but that's how deep is the fighting spirit in the team.

And so when they all put the extra effort to try to understand what was limiting us, try to bring a greater solutions to to cure the issues we had, taking a huge amount of risk in doing so, it has not been a smooth

Second part of the year, we had the many wins, but we also had extremely painful races.