Watching Verstappen is ‘history in the making’ says Mekies amid Red Bull driver's title charge

Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies was full of praise for Max Verstappen after his dominant victory at the United States Grand Prix, believing we are witnessing "history in the making" as he chases a fifth straight Drivers' Championship title.

Verstappen's sumptuous weekend in Austin, where he won the Sprint and the Grand Prix as well as bagging pole for both, reduced his gap to Championship leader Oscar Piastri from 63 points to just 40, with five races and two further Sprints to come this season.

The Dutchman was 104 points behind Piastri just four races ago, having conceded that he was not in the Championship fight back in the summer. But that has all turned around after a dominant string of performances, the Red Bull man having won three out of the last four Grands Prix.

“I think watching Max driving is watching history in the making… He surprises us every time he goes out on track, he surprises us on how much he's pushing us between a session and another, how much sensitivity he has in stuff that sometimes we can see and sometimes we cannot see,” said Mekies after Verstappen’s fourth win in Austin.

“He has been investing himself so hard into supporting the team, supporting the project to get back to competitiveness.

“I'm sure then when you are actually starting to fight for this better position, I'm sure it brings even more out of him.”

Verstappen might have had the perfect weekend on paper, but with the two McLaren cars tripping over each other in the Sprint, and then Lando Norris being held up by Charles Leclerc in the race, it was hard to assess the exact level of Red Bull’s dominance.

The Dutchman was certainly faster over one lap, with Norris having a fair chance to beat him in both Qualifying and Sprint Qualifying, but the picture in the race itself over longer runs remains less clear.

“Were McLaren really so far away or not, or are we going to have a wake-up call in Mexico? That's how we approach it,” Mekies continued.

“Of course, if you look at the string of results – second, first, first, second, first – then of course it's outstanding. It's a fantastic moment and everybody should be proud of it, especially the people you don't see, the ones that are back in the factory and we try to continue with that intensity.”

Verstappen remains the driving force behind the team, having scored 306 of their 331 points this season, and can take advantage of the two McLaren drivers taking points from each other.

And now, the Dutchman seems to have a car under him that he can really attack with. Even some issues in the Sprint were ironed out by the team, who continue to push to make sure nothing is left to chance as Verstappen pursues what at many times this season looked an unlikely bid for a fifth straight World Championship.

“You know we don't separate Max and the car and the team," Mekies added. "It's one group and, as we said, Max is not sitting outside of the project, watching the project, he's at the heart of the project.

“We do not feel we are in a dominant position, but we certainly feel that we have cancelled out a large part of the deficit we had in the first part of the season and now it's down to the last details.

“Don't get me wrong, even on a weekend like today there will be things we can learn, there will be things that we didn't get fully right and that's where our focus, that's where our intensity goes – analysing our data and challenging each other because that's what we do and getting the car in the best possible shape for Mexico.”