Ferrari has appointed the FIA’s former safety director and deputy race director Laurent Mekies to its Formula 1 team. Mekies will report to Ferrari technical director Mattia Binotto when he joins the team on September 20.
His role at the FIA was safety director in 2014 before he became deputy race director in 2016, reporting to Charlie Whiting. Mekies’ responsibilities covered safety and medical matters across FIA championships and R&D homologation. As a result of his appointment with Ferrari, he will no longer be involved with F1 and will step down as deputy F1 race director.
In the other direction, the FIA announced last week that former Ferrari chief designer Nikolas Tombazis, who also worked as an aerodynamicist and chief at McLaren from 2004-05, and an aerodynamicist at Benetton from 1992-95, would join as its new head of single-seater technical matters.
Renault controversially poached an FIA senior figure as former technical director Marcin Budkowski joined the team late last year. Budkowski had to take six months (double the minimum mandated three months) of gardening leave before joining Renault.
Andy Stevenson worked for Eddie Jordan's team throughout its time in Formula 1. He tells Adam Cooper exactly what made the man such a force of nature in the paddock — and a surprisingly effective manager
Red Bull has reshuffled its drivers and changed development direction but its car is still too slow and months behind the progress of F1 rivals, writes Mark Hughes. Max Verstappen's uncertain future makes the way forward even murkier
As Red Bull's seat swapping dominates the headlines, we take a look at six drivers who could be next in line for a seat at the F1 team or its sister outfit Racing Bulls if things don’t go to plan for Yuki Tsunoda or Liam Lawson
Several F1 drivers, including Max Verstappen, have shown their support for Liam Lawson by liking an Instagram post that accuses Red Bull of crushing his spirit with behaviour that approaches "bullying"