Mekies out, but will return for ‘Test 2’ The 2026 season of Red Bull and in particular of its team principal, the Frenchman Laurent Mekies, opens with a small setback. The Austro-English team has in fact announced that the French manager – in his first full season as top manager of the Milton Keynes team – will not be present in Bahrain for the first three days of testing on the Sakhir track, scheduled for 11 to 13 February. In fact, according to what the team reported, Mekies will undergo a “small routine medical operation”. Fortunately, nothing serious for the former Ferrari driver. In fact, the objective for him is to be regularly present on the pit wall in what will be the second part of the tests, the last three days scheduled from 18 to 20 February. In any case, Mekies will be in “close contact” with the team present in Bahrain, in order to be able to follow the entire evolution of what happens on the track.





















