According to the Italian press, Laurent Mekis will not have long to work as sporting director of Ferrari and he may switch to AlphaTauri this year. He may be able to replace Franz Toast as team leader in the future.
According to Gazzetta dello Sport, “the Frenchman with the d’Artagnan mustache will return to the team where he started his Formula 1 career, after an important part of it was in Minardi.”
Since 2005 the team has been called Toro Rosso and in 2020 it was renamed AlphaTauri.
Mekis started looking at options to continue his career outside Maranello at the end of last season. He had to think about this after the removal of Mattia Binotto from the position of head of the Scuderia, despite the fact that the team was led by Frederic Vasseur, with whom Mequis has a long-standing friendly relationship – from the time when both studied at the Paris Higher School of Aeronautical and Automotive Technology (ESTACA).
Possibly Mekis’ decision was influenced by the fact that Ferrari management, president John Elkann and CEO Benedetto Vigna, did not trust him to lead the team after Binotto’s departure, preferring instead to invite Vasseur.
Mekis can move to AlphaTauri this season, if the parties agree, or in 2024. He had once worked with Tost – it was Mekis who was Toro Rosso’s chief engineer in 2008, when 21-year-old Sebastian Vettel took a sensational win at Monza in a Ferrari-powered STR3.
In addition, it is worth considering that Franz Tost is 67 years old, and the Austrian has already hinted that he intends to retire from Formula 1 in three years, so Mekis may get the chance to take his place in 2026 to take.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
