Mekies reflects on Red Bull’s ‘difficult weekend’ in Zandvoort after Verstappen crash as he assesses Lawson’s performance

Laurent Mekies has conceded that the Dutch Grand Prix was a “very difficult weekend” for Red Bull, with Max Verstappen suffering an early crash out of Sunday’s race while Liam Lawson took home a P7 finish.

After Verstappen and Lawson lined up in seventh and eighth on the grid respectively, the pair briefly enjoyed some wheel-to-wheel battling when the event got underway – but Verstappen’s final home race at Zandvoort came to an end within a couple of laps when he lost the rear of his car and hit the wall coming out of Turn 14.

While the Dutchman was fortunately unharmed in the incident, the Grand Prix was red-flagged as the debris was cleared and Lawson then led Red Bull’s charge when the action got back underway.

Despite collecting a 10-second time penalty for a yellow flag infringement, the New Zealander put in a solid drive to claim seventh place on a day where the Milton Keynes-based outfit did not appear able to fight with the top three teams ahead.

Sharing his reflections on the event, Mekies conceded that there were some unknowns over what might have been possible for Verstappen but acknowledged that the pace throughout the days before had highlighted the team’s struggles.

“A difficult weekend here in Zandvoort,” Mekies explained. “First of all, I think the most important thing is that Max is okay. It was a pretty big shunt and we are all glad to see that he's out of the car, unharmed and that's what matters the most today.

“Performance-wise, I think there is nowhere to hide. It was a very difficult weekend. It seems like we have made a bit of a step back compared to where we were before the summer break.

“Of course we'll never know what the real pace of the car in the race would have been with Max, but it's fair to say that session after session it looked more difficult than it was in Budapest or in Spa or in Austria.

“So some tough work for us to do, to regroup and to see if it is simply the competition that has done a better job than us at upgrading the car, or if something has been limiting us more than it should have been here in Zandvoort.

“That will be for us the next two weeks before we fight back into Monza all together.”

Mekies went on to assess how Lawson had performed, with the 24-year-old having substituted for an injured Isack Hadjar during the event at Zandvoort.

“He’s done a good job stepping into the car,” the Team Principal said. “It's never easy to step into a different team, a different car for a race like that. He's done a good job.

“Only one tenth away from Max yesterday in Qualifying and today took the points that were available to him pace-wise with the seventh place.

“We also had Isack with us this weekend even though he couldn't be driving – he was with the team trying to take the learning and trying to make sure we can push all together as strongly as we can next week in Monza.”