– “We are far behind in fourth place. That is the reality,” summarizes Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies after the first three races of the 2026 Formula 1 season. The Bulls are currently unable to keep up with Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren.
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The fact that Mekies calls Red Bull the “fourth force” is even flattering when looking at the World Championship. There, the Bulls are currently only in sixth place, even behind Haas and Alpine and only two points ahead of the Racing Bulls.
This may only be a snapshot, but the fact is that Red Bull has experienced its worst start to a new Formula 1 season since 2015. Eleven years ago was the last time they started a new season without a podium finish in the first three races.
The best season result so far remains a sixth place by Max Verstappen at the season opener in Melbourne; after that, the trend has been pointing downwards rather than upwards. In China, Isack Hadjar was the best Red Bull driver in eighth, and most recently Verstappen in Japan.
Red Bull currently cannot exploit its potential
“I think it has become a bit more complicated for us this weekend – and probably also in China – because we haven’t found a way to provide our drivers with a car they can push with,” Mekies admits to Sky.
The team principal sees “two aspects” that are currently slowing Red Bull down. “On the one hand, it’s clear that we still have a lot of work to do to get to the same level as the others,” he reveals. This means: the RB22 simply lacks performance.
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“On the other hand, there are factors and limitations that prevent us from fully exploiting our potential,” Mekies emphasizes. So, even the existing performance cannot be accessed by Hadjar and Verstappen at the moment.
Mekies explains: “There is an area where we lose some performance at certain corner speeds and corner conditions compared to what our package should actually be capable of. So we have to work on that.”
“Step backward” in China and update failure in Japan
According to Mekies, the negative highlight was the weekend in Shanghai. “We definitely believe that we took a step backward in China. And we don’t just measure that against the top teams, but also against the midfield, which has moved closer to us,” he admits.
In Japan, it was recently “a bit better” again, but that was not noticeable in the pure result. Verstappen was already eliminated in Q2 during qualifying and finished eighth on Sunday, one position behind former Red Bull driver Pierre Gasly in the Alpine.
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An update that the Bulls brought to Suzuka was actually supposed to help. But Verstappen himself emphasizes that it has not yet brought any progress. “I’m not so sure if it really worked well here,” he reports.
“I had a lot of stability problems,” describes the four-time world champion, who emphasizes: “We have a lot of work ahead of us.” Team principal Mekies also admits that Red Bull currently needs to improve in all areas to get back to the top.
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The biggest problem is the chassis
It is interesting in this context that while everyone involved still sees room for improvement with the engine, at the same time, Milton Keynes makes it clear that the first in-house Formula 1 power unit is clearly not the main problem at the moment.
“As far as pure performance is concerned, it’s certainly not our weak point,” Verstappen dismisses, clarifying that there is of course still room for improvement. “But that’s normal. It’s a completely new project,” he reminds. It is much more important to get the problems with the chassis under control.
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Hadjar agrees, describing the engine as “good” but the chassis as “terrible.” Already after the Suzuka qualifying, the Frenchman explained: “The old car was hard to drive, but it was fast. Our current car is hard to drive and slow on top of that.”
According to team principal Mekies, they now want to use the forced break in April to work on these weaknesses. “We are confident that we will use this break to take a big step forward,” he announces.
“We need the time to deal intensively with our data,” he explains, adding: “Does that mean you come to Miami and then all problems are solved as if by a miracle? No,” he clarifies. Nevertheless, he is confident that they will be at least a bit better off after the break.
Mekies: Gap at least hasn’t grown
He estimates the current gap to leader Mercedes in the race at around one second, and to pursuer Ferrari at about half a second. In this context, he also emphasizes that this picture has not changed since the opener in Melbourne.
“The biggest difference in Melbourne was that McLaren seemed within reach there,” he explains. This made Red Bull look a bit better because Verstappen finished right behind Lando Norris there. Since then, however, McLaren has made a leap forward.
“As far as the overall gap to the competition is concerned, it didn’t look much different than in Melbourne,” Mekies says after Suzuka. The only difference was that McLaren was “on the same level” as Ferrari in Japan.
But nothing has changed in Red Bull’s gap to the top. In the coming months, they want to close this gap, but Mekies explains: “Only the track and the lap time give us an indication of whether we are on the right track.”
“I don’t think we should expect a miracle when it comes to closing the gap, because the deficit is considerable,” he emphasizes. Especially since the other teams also want to use the break until Miami to achieve further improvements.
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