Red Bull confirm another major F1 leadership change after Christian Horner exit

Red Bull have confirmed that new team principal Laurent Mekies will have "significantly reduced" responsibilities compared to predecessor Christian Horner. The Frenchman is the new man in charge at the Formula 1 team after the main Red Bull company announced Horner's exit last week.

Neither the team nor its parent company have offered any reasons for the sudden management change publicly. But long-serving adviser Helmut Marko has now confirmed that "various factors" were behind the decision, most notably the team's decline in performance.

"The decision was made by [chief executive of Red Bull corporate projects] Oliver Mintzlaff", the Austrian said of Horner's demise. "We informed Christian Horner of this on Tuesday in London after the Silverstone race.

"At the same time, we officially thanked him for these 20 years and for these eight World Championship titles. This was the result of various factors, but above all, the performance wasn’t quite as good as it could have been."

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Horner's position had long been under scrutiny, having lost the trust of Red Bull chiefs in Austria some time ago. He was protected by majority shareholder Chalerm Yoovidhya who gave the Brit his backing, until recently, which was the major change behind the scenes that facilitated the change of leadership.

Horner had served not only as team principal but also chief executive. Austrian Red Bull officials were understood to have been uncomfortable with the amount of power wielded by Horner after 20 years in charge.

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Marko went on to confirm that, although Mekies also holds both TP and CEO titles, he will not be as omnipotent as Horner once was. "Fortunately, we were able to bring Laurent Mekies into the family. His responsibilities will be significantly reduced, with the main focus being on racing," he added.

Mekies has admitted that his main priority in his new role is to ensure that the team keeps hold of its star asset. Max Verstappen has been strongly linked with a move to rivals Mercedes – speculation which has only intensified since Horner's exit.

And the new chief is focused on making Red Bull as competitive and attractive as possible to give them the best chance of convincing the Dutchman to stay. Mekies said: "I'm sure Max wants a fast car and if we get him a fast car, I'm sure it's cancelling out all the other considerations.

"So really the focus is very much to try to get to know the team as quickly as possible in order to see how we can support, how we can build the next step of competitiveness in order to get a fast car and hence to make it an easy call for Max."