Verstappen REVEALS How Mekies Allowed Him To Make Everyone Else Look SILLY!

Verstappen returned to winning ways with a dominant performance at Monza last weekend. It was a return to the max that we all know, after months of failing to compete with the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. To make it even more impressive, he managed it with the biggest winning margin of the season. To say it was a shock would be an understatement. He hadn't looked anywhere near the frontrunners during any of the free practice sessions for the weekend, and many people were left asking, where did the performance come from? Today I'll check out how Verstappen upset Ferrari and McLaren to take a historic victory at Monza, so don't go anywhere. Verstappen's win in Italy last weekend will go down in history, quite literally. The performance of the Red Bull F1 team is at its lowest point in over a decade, despite having the best driver in the sport behind the wheel of the RB21. The last time Red Bull were fourth in the Constructors' Championship, Daniel Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo drove for the team. Nico Rosberg hadn't won a World Drivers' Championship. Lotus and Marussia were still in the sport, and Sebastian Vettel was just starting to discover the pain that driving for Ferrari inflicts. Since that 2015 season, Red Bull have always finished in the top three of the Constructors' Championship. This season, that looks highly unlikely. The performances this season have been coming, though. A year ago, Verstappen called his car a monster, as Red Bull's performance slumped while he tried to fight a rear-guard title defence. This year, they've generally not been competitive with McLaren, other than on high-speed tracks such as Suzuka and Imola, so Monza gave them an opportunity. Verstappen capitalised with a brilliant pole at an all-time record pace, and dominated the race from the start. Norris challenged at the start, and Verstappen cut the first chicane to retain the lead. Red Bull ordered him to let Norris back past to avoid a penalty, but Verstappen immediately attacked, and was back past Norris with an overtaking move into the first chicane at the start of lap four. The Dutchman, who had not won a race since the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in May nine races ago, was flawless thereafter, pulling away from the McLarens and never looking under threat. McLaren gambled on late stops, in the hope they might catch a safety car that would give them a cheap pit stop and allow them to attack Verstappen on soft tyres at the end, but one never came. That made the world champion's winning advantage more than 19 seconds, which was exaggerated, but it was still a return to the Verstappen and Red Bull of old. Verstappen's record-breaking lap was certainly a shock. To set the fastest ever F1 lap in the current generation of cars should have been impossible. The cars from around 2020 are widely considered to be the fastest ever produced by the sport, and the FIA has been very keen to However, over the Monza weekend, both Verstappen and McLaren's Lando Norris beat the previous record, set by Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes at the same track in 2020. Fastest laps in F1 are calculated slightly differently to how you might expect. It isn't the lap time that's looked at, but the average speed over the whole lap, which means the record takes into account lap length. Norris was the first to beat Hamilton's with his lap of 1'18.869", which was 164.323mph. Verstappen then crossed the line a few seconds later and lowered the mark to 1'18.792", at 164.466mph. So how did he manage it, in a rule set which is meant to be significantly slower than that which Hamilton's record was set in? Well, there were a number of factors at play. Despite being slower overall, the current cars have less drag than those in 2020, so are faster on the straights, and at Monza, cars spend longer at full throttle than anywhere else. On top of that, Monza was resurfaced before last year's race, and the new surface has more grip than the old, worn out one, which Hamilton set the previous record on. Verstappen said, Honestly, I didn't even think about that one across the line, but it's nice. It didn't feel too bad. The cars are being fun. They're pretty decent in the high speed. They're quite quick in a straight line. Of course, the low speed, that's where we lose out compared to the previous generation. And yeah, on some tracks, you can do these lap records now. Also, the new tarmac helps around here, curbing too, like the kerbs opened up a little bit. I think the 2020 Mercedes is still quicker if you put it on the track now. Despite all of that though, this was an incredible performance from Red Bull and Verstappen, even compared to his previous wins at the high speed circuits of Imola and Suzuka. Well, one thing has changed since then, and Verstappen is giving it the credit for the win. Before I talk about that though, if you're enjoying the video and want to check more news and analysis on Formula 1, then make sure to press the like button and subscribe to F1 Reverse. Thanks a lot. Since Verstappen's two previous wins, there has been one big thing that has changed at Red Bull, and that is the team principle. Gone is Christian Horner, and in his place stands Laurent Mechies. Verstappen said Mechies has imposed more order on their approach to fine-tuning the problematic RV21, which has paid off in the last two races. He also expressed his dislike of how Horner's Red Bull team had tried to solve problems with a scattergun approach. Up until now, we've had a lot of races where we're just shooting left and right a little bit with the setup of the car, he said. Quite extreme changes, which shows that we were not We were not fully understanding what to do. With Laurent having an engineering background, he's asking the right questions to the engineers, common sense questions, so I think that works really well. Plus, you try to understand from the things that you've tried, then at one point something gives you a bit of an idea of a direction, and that's what we kept working on. His answer implies that Horner wasn't asking the common sense questions that needed asking of the engineers. While Horner may have had two decades of experience as a team principal with Red Bull, turning just another F1 team into goliaths of the sport, his lack of engineering experience was always one of his few shortcomings. Verstappen said the improvement was clear from Mechies' third race in charge, the Dutch Grand Prix. I definitely felt that in Zandvoort already we took a step that seemed to work quite well, and then here another step which felt again a little bit better. An improving Red Bull car with a seemingly much happier Verstappen behind the wheel is a scary prospect. While he may mathematically still be in the race for the World Drivers Championship, he would have to win every single race remaining, while hoping that Piastri doesn't finish in the top three too often. Even if Oskar finished third while Verstappen won all of the remaining races, Oskar would still be champion by 14 points. Nonetheless, Verstappen can once again show just how good he is for the remainder of the season. Someone who was particularly impressed with what he saw was Toto Wolff. Today, one driver made everyone else look silly, Wolff said in reference to Verstappen's dominant drive. With the Austrian's confirmed interest in the driver, this result may come as a kick in the teeth, having failed to sign Verstappen for next season. Wolff put the pressure on his drivers to be more like Max as he aims to sign the four-time world champion for 2027. They really need to ask themselves what he's doing differently. Overall, we weren't competitive over the weekend. A 5th and an 8th place are absolutely not satisfactory. I don't think with our current setup, we have a car that we can consistently drive onto the podium. But Kimi made too many mistakes. He simply needs to put together a solid weekend. Then he'll be racing on equal terms with Leclerc and George. And with George, things also weren't completely smooth When Verstappen is at the top of his game, with a car that matches his talents, he is on another level. And with Mechies now leading Red Bull, it looks like the car could be a match far more often. What did you think of Verstappen's performance at Monza? Do you think that Mechies could lead Red Bull to a new era of dominance? Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below and until next time, drive safe and bye for now.