Mekies says Verstappen’s P2 finish in Hungary helped by ‘spicy’ Red Bull strategy calls

Max Verstappen finished second in the Hungarian Grand Prix, pulling off one of the moves of the day on Lewis Hamilton as he bagged his fourth podium finish of the season. But while that overtake certainly played a part in the Dutchman’s result, so did Red Bull’s strategy calls.

Team boss Laurent Mekies was quick to pay credit to the pit wall for their quick-fire reactions to an ever-changing picture during the race – with Kimi Antonelli looking like one-stopping, the Mercedes man then switched strategy before a late Virtual Safety Car period muddled the pack once again.

Red Bull initially followed the same model as their McLaren rivals, starting on the mediums and switching to the hard compound.

But they then opted to bolt on a set of softs for Verstappen's last stint – in itself a bold call given he had 32 laps still to complete – and then they did not bring him in under the VSC, opting for track position instead. A decision that paid off.

“So, in terms of before the race predictions, for what it was, we felt Lando [Norris] and the two Ferraris would be out of touch,” Mekies explained. “We felt we could race the Mercedes and probably Oscar. As it turned out, we could race both Ferraris, and Lando was out of reach.

“And in terms of the VSC, there have been a number of quite spicy strategy calls made by the guys today, including the one of the VSC, but not only, if you look at the earlier move not to cover Lewis [Hamilton] when he pitted early on, and as always, they always get it right.

“Very well done to the pit wall and to the whole team back home, tyre group, strategy group, and I think as a whole, race execution has been very, very strong here. We have suffered at the beginning of the year with our starts, we are now managing to produce decent starts, strong pit stops, very strong strategy as always.

“So certainly very happy with the way the team has been operating in these last few races as it's going to be back to the standard it's known for.”

Red Bull struggled throughout the whole weekend in Budapest with the feeling in the car, both Verstappen and team mate Isack Hadjar complaining over the radio about a whole list of things – gear shifts, balance and deployment to name three.

As such, to come away with a P2 and a P6 finish was reasonably impressive, especially considering Hadjar’s strategy was compromised by being left out to try and hold off some of Verstappen’s rivals in the pit stop periods.

But Mekies knows there is still work to do to get the RB22 into a better window week in, week out.

“I think we never managed to give Max and Isack a car they could push with," he said. "So, for example, if I look back to driver's feedback in Spa or in Austria, they would probably have said that the car was pretty much ballpark to how it should feel and to what it allows them to do.

“That was never the case this weekend, certainly worse on Friday and Saturday compared to [Sunday], but still [in the race] I have to say that it probably was still not giving a very good feeling to the drivers.

“Nonetheless, in the end of the day, it's probably tough for everyone out there, and I think it's fair to say that only Lando [Norris] was clearly faster than Max today and I think everyone else could be matched or beat, so I guess it's positive because it means we have margin to improve with the current package.

“We'll try to see why we are so much on the edge of car balance, corner balance, car performing, car not performing, because it's been hard work for certainly the drivers but also the team in these last few races to keep the car in its window.”

Red Bull remain fourth in the Teams’ Championship, 43 points behind McLaren as the teams head into the traditional summer break, with Verstappen's home race next up in Zandvoort.