Racing Bulls busy over Formula 1 April break with upgrades and learning more about Red Bull Ford Power unit

Racing Bulls' start to the 2026 F1 season may not be stellar, but they have managed to score points in each of the first three races and, as such, are seventh in the Constructors' Standings, just two points behind their senior team, Red Bull Racing, who are sixth after a woeful season start.

But like all the F1 teams, Racing Bulls now have a chance to look at their situation over the break with some time to react, find solutions, and finalize car upgrades.

"We've got a few things in the pipeline," Permane said. "We had a decent upgrade planned for Bahrain, which we'll now take to Miami, and another planned for Montreal, so we'll effectively have a quick double upgrade.

"We'll introduce one and then replace it straight away, as we can't bring everything at once or move the Montreal upgrade forward.

"With freight back from Japan, we've also taken the opportunity to carry out some unplanned work on the chassis—work that wasn't scheduled until the end of this flyaway sequence.

"Some areas of the business have been working harder than expected, so we've encouraged the race team to take some time off," he added.

Racing Bulls have also been able to do something special for the design team, as Permane revealed: "We're using this period to build up the cars so the design office can see them fully assembled.

"The cars are hardly ever here during the season, so it's a good chance to complete work we couldn't do before.

"If one or both of the cancelled races are reinstated, we're expecting a busy end to the year, so we want to make sure everyone can take rest where possible too," he explained.

Permane gave his assessment of Racing Bulls' season so far; he continued: "I think we did a good job. I'm not often one to self-praise, but we performed well in Shanghai.

"We managed to score points in both the sprint and the main race, even though we weren't really quick enough. It was similar in Suzuka, but we've been able to extract the maximum from the car to bring home points.

"We are paying the price against the teams we're racing who developed their cars last season, whereas we developed ours towards the end of the year, so we're a little on the back foot.

"However, the upgrades we're bringing should hopefully move us closer to the top of the midfield," he predicted.

One of the areas Racing Bulls need to focus on is their new power unit designed and manufactured by Red Bull Ford Powertrains, which has been decent given it is the first to be produced at Milton Keynes.

"The PU works very well," Permane said, "and with every lap we complete, we learn more. Each time we run the car, we gather valuable data.

"One advantage we have is that we have powertrain engineers embedded within our engineering office, which allows us to work closely with them and better understand both them and how they operate.

"This break gives us the opportunity to take a step back and review what we've done so far. There will likely be some changes in how we operate the PU for Miami and beyond.

"We're using this period to work closely together to extract the maximum performance from both the PU and the chassis," he concluded.