Red Bull Racing is grappling with performance issues in the new Formula 1 era, finishing well behind the frontrunners at the Japanese Grand Prix. Max Verstappen placed eighth and Isack Hadjar 12th, as team principal Laurent Mekies acknowledged the team is a second off the pace. Mercedes has dominated early races amid major regulation changes.
Red Bull entered the 2026 season with high expectations but has faced challenges adapting to smaller, lighter cars and hybrid engines split nearly 50:50 between internal combustion and electric power. Verstappen and Hadjar struggled at Suzuka, with Mekies stating after the race, “There is nothing to be happy about today.” He described the team as “a distant force,” lagging one second behind Mercedes in Melbourne, with gaps widening in China and Japan where McLaren matched the leaders' pace alongside Ferrari. Mercedes secured victories in Australia, China, and Japan, while Red Bull's top results were Verstappen's sixth in Melbourne and Hadjar's eighth in Shanghai. Mekies pointed to issues with the RB22 chassis despite a strong in-house power unit developed with Ford. “It's a combination of underlying performance and us not being able to extract enough from the package,” he told reporters, expressing confidence in solving these complex limitations as the team did last year with late upgrades. A month-long break follows the cancellations of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia races, which Hadjar called a disadvantage for understanding the car.
