Max Verstappen's teammate 'empowered' after Christian Horner exit as per F1 champion

The 2016 F1 champion, Nico Rosberg, has declared that Max Verstappen's Red Bull teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, has become 'empowered' since Christian Horner's departure. Horner was sacked as team principal on 9 July 2025, with Laurent Mekies taking his place on the main team.

During last week's Belgian Grand Prix, Nico Rosberg noticed Laurent Mekies backing Yuki Tsunoda throughout the race weekend. Moreover, the Japanese driver even produced a strong P7 in qualifying with the same upgrades as Max Verstappen.

Rosberg genuinely believes that Mekies' consistent support for Tsunoda is doing the trick for him. In line with this, the F1 pundit said the following via Sky F1 last week:

"He has now really empowered Yuki Tsunoda this weekend. He has given him the new upgrade, that he can have the new floor himself as well, not just Verstappen. He gives him a thumbs up and a smile after sessions. After qualifying, they connected as Yuki was driving in. He saw Laurent on the pit wall, giving him a big smile and a thumbs-up."

"That makes a huge difference to a driver when suddenly, he sees that he has the support from the team. Whereas before, he said, I heard that he felt like he was on a bit of an island on his own, in a team that was for Max Verstappen and they only cared about Max Verstappen. Now, Laurent straight away is also caring about Yuki."

Yuki Tsunoda secured a P13 finish in the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix, courtesy of a late pit-stop call by the Red Bull crew. He is currently in P17 in the drivers' standings with only 10 points.

Max Verstappen's take on the Belgian Grand Prix

F1 Grand Prix Of Belgium - Source: Getty

Max Verstappen has been doing his best in the 2025 F1 season to extract performance out of the RB21. At Spa-Francorchamps, his car was set up for a wet race, and because of this, he was not able to make much of an impression on Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in P3.

Verstappen got close to the Monegasque driver quite a few times, but was just not able to get the better of him. In line with this, the former said the following via a post-race interview with F1:

"On the inters, we were naturally a bit faster because of the set up that we had on the car. It was just very tough to pass. We went onto the slick tyres and to be honest, every lap, I just felt that Charles was pulling away a little bit."

Max Verstappen finished the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix in a disappointing fourth position. He is currently in third place in the drivers' standings with 185 points, but the gap to the front-running pair of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri has further extended. Norris is in second place with 250 points, whereas Piastri is leading from the front with 266 points.

There are still 11 races remaining on the calendar for Max Verstappen to make a comeback in the championship fight. However, to do so, Red Bull will be required to pull up its socks and start providing its star driver with a potent challenger.