Red Bull is ‘paying the price’ for its 2025 Formula 1 title bid with Max Verstappen, as resources were diverted from its 2026 challenger, team principal Laurent Mekies has admitted.
Last season, Verstappen managed to overturn Oscar Piastri’s 104-point championship lead in the last nine grands prix of the season, falling just two points short of the Australian’s McLaren team-mate Lando Norris.
The effort came at a significant cost to Red Bull, with spending restricted by the budget cap while wind tunnel and CFD tests are limited by the Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions regulations – all the more so for top teams.
As other squads focused on the new-for-2026 technical regulations, Red Bull brought its last performance upgrades as late as the Mexican Grand Prix, at the end of October.
As a consequence, the new RB22 has been the fourth-quickest car in the field so far in 2026, comfortably outperformed by the Mercedes, Ferraris and McLarens – and outqualified by Pierre Gasly’s Alpine in China and Japan.
Still, when asked about the decision to keep developing the RB21 in the Beyond The Grid podcast, Mekies said: “That was easy because nobody wanted to give up.
Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
“We thought and we still think it was the right thing to do, because we felt that turning the page to ‘26 would have been a little bit of an easy escape and a wishful thinking that next year will be better, even though we didn’t fully understand what were the limitations of ‘25.
“We didn’t think it was the right way. Now, of course, the time and energy we invested for the late push last year, does it have an impact on where you start ’26? Of course, it does. So, of course, we pay a bit of the price today.
“Do we use it as an excuse? No. We are not happy with the starting point, but we think we will get through these difficulties. As we did last year, we will get a full understanding of the limitations. And this team has been very, very good in turning things around, and we have another chance to do it this year.”
According to the Frenchman, last year’s turnaround at least proved to be extremely beneficial to team morale as Verstappen won six of the last nine grands prix.
“It made me feel so happy for the girls and the guys in the team because they had such a difficult start of the season last year,” Mekies pointed out. “The car was not performing at the level they were hoping. Pressure was high.
“You come to the middle of the season and you get a new boss. With the new regulations coming for 2026, with the new power unit projects, there were all the reasons in the world to say, ‘Well, you know what, let’s turn the page. ‘25 did not work. Let’s concentrate on 26’. You would have been mad to do anything differently, to want to do things differently.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images
“And the truth is, nobody wanted to do that in Milton Keynes. Nobody wanted to turn the page. They all wanted to get to the bottom of that ‘25 car, get to the bottom of what didn’t work to the level expected, and turn things around. And yes, they knew there would be a price to pay for later, but that’s how deep is the fighting spirit in the team.
“And so when they all put the extra effort to try to understand what was limiting us, try to bring upgrades and solutions to cure the issues we had, taking a huge amount of risk in doing so – it has not been a smooth second part of the year. We had the many wins, but we also had extremely painful races – I’m sure you recall Zandvoort or Budapest, or maybe Saturday in Brazil.
“So all these successes came with that incredible spirit of the team there, that didn’t want to give up. All the successes came from the massive risk-taking that the team had to take in that short amount of time to turn things around.”
Turning things around will be a taller order this time around, with Red Bull lying sixth in the constructors’ championship behind Haas and Alpine – 119 points down on Mercedes after three grands prix.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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