During Formula 1’s summer break, Max Verstappen finds himself no fewer than 110 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
Last season, the four-time world champion launched a spectacular comeback from Zandvoort onwards and finished on the podium in every grand prix during the second half of the season, but this time he is absolutely not expecting that scenario.
Red Bull’s problems are more complex this time around. The team started the season with a significant deficit, which had been expected, albeit for different reasons. Before the season, its own power unit was the biggest question mark, although the DM01 has proved surprisingly competitive.
On the chassis side, however, the shortcomings were greater. Add the RB22’s excess weight to the equation and it becomes clear why Red Bull was more than 1.3 seconds off in terms of pure race pace in Australia and China, according to figures from Paceteq.
That gap had been reduced to two tenths per lap in Belgium and Hungary, although Verstappen believes those figures do not tell the whole story.
In Budapest, the Dutchman said that a new problem seems to emerge at Red Bull every weekend, having previously joked that all the setbacks this year would lead him to spend the winter break as a Buddha in Tibet.
Verstappen says that in Hungary he was more affected by “car degradation” than tyre degradation, an issue Red Bull needs to address
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
On a more serious note, Verstappen says Red Bull needs to get these kinds of issues under control, particularly after he experienced what he described as “car degradation” in Hungary, with the car getting worse over the course of the weekend and even during a session.
“We need to first find more overall performance. And then we need to fix our problems, where we sometimes just lose performance over a weekend, or even from the start of the race to the end,” Verstappen said.
“So, yeah, that is actually a big priority.”
Verstappen can sum up the first half of the 2026 season in one word: “Tough.”
“In general, it’s been very tough. Some good moments, some bright and shining moments, I guess, but in overall, it has been tough. So, I think we need to try and be more solid, a bit more all-round, to have more straightforward weekends. Plus, we need to find more performance.
“It’s as simple as that at the end of the day. Then, besides finding more performance, just not having these issues with the current package.”
Red Bull is also still struggling with corner entry instability and mid-corner understeer
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
Pierre Wache identifies two weaknesses of the RB22
While Verstappen stresses that Red Bull needs to prevent these negative surprises, technical director Pierre Wache acknowledges that the RB22 also has several specific problems that both drivers have complained about.
“I think, as with every racing car, you see some limitations in how the drivers can use the car, the load of it, and the characteristics of what you can do in terms of balance and trying to rebalance the car.
“Clearly, we have some limitations, like every racing car, in terms of stability on [corner] entry and mid-corner understeer. And we try to avoid those aspects by using some mechanical tools to achieve it,” Wache said when asked by Autosport.
Verstappen strongly dislikes mid-corner understeer, although the feedback from both Red Bull drivers is fairly similar in that respect.
When Autosport asked Hadjar what he considers the biggest limitation, he pointed to the same areas as Wache.
“Entry stability needs to be solved, and then we can improve the rest,” the 21-year-old French driver said.
Despite these problems, Red Bull has made significant progress since the difficult opening phase of the season. Wache reaches the same conclusion when reflecting on the painful opening race weekends of 2026.
“Regarding the issues with the car at the beginning, clearly we were missing some load compared to some others. And we also had some mechanical gremlins on the car, which meant the driver didn’t feel the car through the steering. We corrected that at the beginning.
“It took a little bit of time, but it came on top of the overall performance [deficit] and the potential of the car. So yeah, we had some issues with the drivers’ feeling, that is not a secret.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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