Target Driven
For Mekies, the 20 points taken so far (just five shy of 2023’s full-season total) mean the team is actually ahead of schedule.
“Top of the midfield was our mid-term, long-term objective and after seven races we’re there. We are ahead of plan because it was not in our year one objectives,” he says. “However, we are completely conscious that it is going to be a huge fight to maintain that position through the year.
“We are P6 with no pace advantage on any of the teams from P7 to P10. But we have developed the car carefully and we have executed weekends well, in a very sharp way, building up race after race. I think in the end we have taken all the points that were available to take.”
READ MORE: 6 Winners and 5 Losers from Imola – Who excelled as F1 returned to Europe?
Mekies is keenly aware, however, that the margins are tight and that gains in the development war are not easily won.
“I’ll give you an example – Miami,” he says. “We got a lot of points there, but ahead of that weekend we pushed massively to bring the updates originally planned for Imola to Miami. That’s the name of the game. We went to Miami with two sets of floors, zero spare, maximum risk. It worked. We got a bit of a pace offset, we took the points, and came home.
“There will be pushback, meaning Sauber will have updates, Williams will have updates, Haas too. But it’s the game we are in, so we certainly don’t take for granted that we are here [P6] for good. We think it’s going to be a huge fight.”
