The Latest Breaking News from Laurent Mekies

The RB team is fielding an all-Japanese line-up in first free practice with Iwasa joining regular driver Yuki Tsunoda in the VCARB 01 in their home round.

RB man Tsunoda broke through the apparent barrier between F1's top and bottom five teams by beating both Aston Martins in Melbourne qualifying. He also outqualified Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton by claiming eighth on the starting grid, just narrowly behind Mercedes' George Russell. The Japanese driver couldn't keep the faster Astons…

Tsunoda was asked to let Ricciardo past in the closing laps as the Australian was on fresh soft tyres, and potentially in a position to challenge the cars ahead.

As F1 heads to a new rules era from 2026, one idea that some outfits want is to clamp down on the kind of partnerships that exist between Red Bull/RB and Ferrari/Haas.

The Red Bull-owned squad is undergoing a revamp of its F1 programme, which has included a change of identity away from AlphaTauri and the arrival of new team management in Laurent Mekies and Peter Bayer.

We’re supposed to call the outfit that fields the cars the Visa Cash App RB F1 Team, although the company behind it – as seen for example in the email addresses of employees – is officially known as Racing Bulls.

We’re supposed to call the outfit that fields the cars the Visa Cash App RB F1 Team, although the company behind it – as seen for example in the email addresses of employees – is officially known as Racing Bulls.

The Anglo-Italian team announced three key hires on Monday afternoon as it goes through a significant revamp under incoming team principal Laurent Mekies.

After all, the way that Andrea Stella took to the team principal role at McLaren like a duck to water – helping steer one of the most impressive F1 comebacks in living memory – showed all that’s possible with the right engineering-led focus at the top.