Laurent Mekis: Liam Lawson has something to prove

      Laurent Mekis, head of the Racing Bulls team, has no doubts about the talent of Liam Lawson, but at the same time believes that Yuki Tsunoda has made impressive progress over the past 12 months and is fully ready to move to Red Bull Racing.

      Q: Before this race, Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda were in the spotlight. Let's start with Liam.: How would you describe this rider returning to your team this weekend?Laurent Mekis: Understand, Liam is fine. He has quite a good attitude. I won't say that he was pleased with the news from last week, because, of course, it's not easy to digest, but to be honest, the very next day he was with us in Faenza and had the seat fitted.

      Then, a day later, he was working on the simulator, and now we're here in Japan, so everything is going well. He knows that he has an important role to play in our team, which is fighting for positions in the middle of the peloton. He has something to prove now.

      We all perfectly understand that he has talent, and the only question is to create the right conditions in which this talent will be revealed.

      Question: According to you, he has something to prove. Do you know what he's capable of, you've been working with him for over a year: were you surprised by his results in two races for Red Bull?Laurent Mekis: I think we were all surprised. In my opinion, no one expected him to be at the very back in these two races, although all this was certainly accompanied by rather difficult circumstances. But if I say that one of us expected such an outcome, it would not be true. Nevertheless, we firmly believe that he has not lost his talent, so we are starting our new adventure from where we left off last year.

      Question: Now let's talk about Yuki: we've heard from you more than once what a good professional he is, but is he ready to become a Red Bull Racing driver?Laurent Mekis: Of course, he's ready for that. We've said this more than once, and we're ready to repeat that last year Yuki made an incredible step forward compared to previous seasons. We really felt that if he took the next step in 2025, he would reach a very serious level. That's exactly what he did, for which he deserves credit.

      At the end of last season, Yuki was upset, but he returned to his homeland, Japan, and came back with a very combative attitude. I could feel it when he worked very hard with us at the bases in Faenza and Milton Keynes in January, including paying attention to the slightest nuances of preparing for the season.

      When he got behind the wheel at the Bahrain tests, it was immediately clear that he had indeed taken another step forward.

      Q: It looks like Racing Bulls has a very fast car this season. What is she capable of this weekend in Suzuka?Laurent Mekis: We don't think it's self-evident. We had a really fast car in Melbourne and Shanghai, which is a good sign. But at the same time, there is a very intense rivalry behind the top four teams, and everything is very tight between 5th and 10th place in the Constructors' Cup. I think it will be the same this weekend.

      It's too early to say whether we have enough speed to lead this group of teams, at least repeating what we did in the first two qualifiers of the season. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, but we have to fight our way forward every weekend. Let's see what we can achieve.

      So far, we are not really able to use this pace effectively and earn points, but we will try to make everything go smoothly this weekend.

      Q: There is no doubt that you have a fast car this year, but after the previous race, Yuki said that in Australia and China the team lost points due to a wrong choice of tactics. What measures have you taken to avoid this in the future? Has your approach changed?Laurent Mekis: Yes, and of course we have to admit that we made two serious mistakes in the first two races. It's a shame, but we tried to draw conclusions. Therefore, we had to review the entire decision-making process, this entire chain of actions.

      Before the next three stages, we have made changes to this process, although this does not mean that we will be able to achieve significant improvements immediately, but with the intensity of competition that we see now, we definitely need to pay serious attention to everything related to tactics.

      Question: Can you tell us in more detail about the progress that Yuki has made over the past year?Laurent Mekis: We can see that he is now working more calmly, has become a more mature professional, and has made significant improvements in terms of technical training. And all this, taken together, has a positive effect on its speed. He's actually been a leader in our team since the beginning of this season, and I think his progress is really impressive. At the same time, we can see what efforts he puts in and how hard he works.

      Question: Going back to the events that took place at the end of last year, to what extent did you influence the personnel decision-making process? Did you personally have confidence that Liam was ready to move to Red Bull Racing after just 11 races? Did you have any doubts at the time that maybe this transition happened too soon?Laurent Mekis: That's an interesting question. You see, the priority task of our team is to become more and more competitive. But there is also a second task: to raise young talents for Red Bull. Usually at the end of the year, and sometimes even earlier, we propose candidates for one of our drivers or both at once to our "big brother" in the hope that they may be interested in Red Bull Racing.

      Last year, we thought both drivers deserved it. We have presented both candidates to Christian Horner, Helmut Marko and a wider range of Red Bull executives. And they made all the further decisions.