SINGAPORE -- Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies is still steadfastly refusing to take credit for the team's dramatic turnaround in form under his watch, something Max Verstappen said he thinks he is being "too nice" about.
Since Mekies replaced Christian Horner in July, Red Bull's form has flipped around dramatically.
Verstappen scored a podium at the Dutch Grand Prix coming out of the summer break, then back-to-back wins in Monza and Baku, before securing second position at Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix.
After Verstappen's Monza win in September, Mekies deflected questions about his impact since taking over. Three races on, his opinion has not changed.
"It's still zero, guys. It's still zero," he told reporters on Sunday night when asked whether he would reappraise how much credit he can take now. "And I say it with the same seriousness that I told you after Monza.
"The improvement in performance is very basically due to the work of everyone trying to analyse the limitations of the car, race after race. What is stopping us from exploiting the potential of the car? How can we add performance to the car? Where do we need to add performance for it to convert into lap time?
"And that work, again, with extremely strong and clear inputs from Max, that work is paying off, which is good news. Because as a group, it just confirms that we have the best people that we can dream of. And we will continue working, we are not stopping there.
"We will take it again race by race and try to see if there is more to come."
The turnaround has led to McLaren labelling Verstappen as a genuine threat to Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in the drivers' title race -- the reigning champion is 63 points off the lead with six races left.
Verstappen has already praised Mekies for the job he has done since stepping up from his old job as team boss of Red Bull junior team, Racing Bulls.
Mekies comes from an engineering background and Verstappen said after the Italian Grand Prix he had injected a more common sense approach to how they set up the car.
"I think Laurent is probably being too nice in that sense," Verstappen said on Sunday night when told of Mekies' comments.
"But at the end of the day, what is very good is that we just approach it as a proper team effort. We always tried to look into the details. We tried to understand what our weaknesses were. And since a few races, it's definitely picked up a lot.
"Maybe now it was not as good as last race weekend, but sometimes you come out of a race just a bit lost, not really understanding why or how. I do think that now we understand why or how we can be better.
"And, yeah, by asking the right questions, including Laurent being involved in that, it's just working well."