The opening stages of the 2026 season have proven challenging for the team led by Laurent Mekies. Red Bull’s all-new power unit has been surprisingly competitive – certainly in the eyes of some rivals in the paddock – but on the chassis side the package was underwhelming during the first three race weekends.
Red Bull brought its first significant upgrade of the year to the Japanese Grand Prix, although Max Verstappen said in Suzuka that he could not really feel the difference. That reignited questions about the team's correlation, despite the fact that the Miami package behaved exactly as Red Bull had predicted.
