Laurent Mekies: Our goal is to stay in 6th position

AlphaTauri finished 8th in the Constructors’ Championship last season, but after nine stages of the 2024 Championship it sits confidently in 6th place, clearly indicating the progress of the team, now called Visa Cash App RB F1 Team, but everyone just calls the RB.

Since the beginning of the season, Yuki Tsunoda has regularly earned points, Daniel Ricciardo was clearly behind him, but now it seems that he is gradually improving, in Miami he took at least 4th place in the sprint, and a week ago he finished 8th in the Grand Prix Under Canada.

“The start of the season was very good,” said Laurent Mekis, who has been leading the team from Faenza since this year, in an interview with the official website of the championship. – We probably had some difficult races, but we are making little progress and this process is stable.

From race to race the car is getting better, the team is working closer and now this is all enough to give us a lead of about 0.5 seconds over other mid-pack teams. The difference is minimal, but since the third stage of the season we have been competing for points in every race.

The team is doing a great job and trying to make the most of all opportunities. We also earned points for this. We understand that our lead is very small, and if we lose this half-tenth, we will probably again not be able to progress beyond the first session of qualifying. In general there is a tough fight, but we like it and keep attacking.

First of all, we must pay tribute to Franz Tost (who led AlphaTauri until the end of last year), because it is thanks to him that talented people work for us. Over the years he has strengthened the team, a very solid foundation has been laid and now that our project is very attractive, many people want to work for us. The team will soon be supplemented with a number of great specialists.

If we want to achieve sixth place in the championship, in which six factory teams compete, even though there are at least seven top teams, and if we do not want to fall back to the last places of the manufacturers’ championship, then we need to seriously strengthen our structure. This is exactly what we do. Some things can be accomplished quickly, some things take longer, but all of this gives us strength.

I have been lucky in my life; I have seen many champions. They gradually progressed and became faster and faster. Yuki is in his fourth season in Formula 1, and usually a driver progresses in this way in the early stages of his career, but at this point he has improved a lot. Yuki deserves all the praise and I think highly of him. We are responsible for creating the conditions for its further development.

We also constantly try to help Daniel, realizing that he has potential. We are responsible for giving him a car that he can drive at a higher level, because we know he is capable of doing so.

We have to try to stay in sixth place in the team rankings, although I wouldn’t have said that even in winter. But now we occupy it and continue the fight. But defending this position will not be easy, we also understand that…”