Red Bull kept developing their 2025 Formula 1 for title tilt and are paying the price this season

The Milton Keynes outfit were resurgent midseason onwards in 2025, following the arrival of Laurent Mekies to replace Christian Horner, and while Verstappen delivered an impressive comeback from over 100 points behind Norris in the Championship, the Dutchman ultimately fell short by two points.

But Mekies is adamant that was worth the trouble; he said: “[Verstappen’s comeback] 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.

“The car was not performing at the level they were hoping. The 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; 2025 did not work. Let's concentrate on 2026'.

“You would have been mad to do anything differently, to want to do things differently. 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, and turn things around," he explained.

However, the Frenchman admitted that the push in 2025 was detrimental to the team's 2026 efforts, as their RB22 turned out to be underperforming and overweight with their new Red Bull-Ford power unit still needing more development.

“And yes, they knew there would be a price to pay later," Mekies added, "but that's how deep is the fighting spirit in the team. They all put in 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.

“We thought and we still think it was the right thing to do," he insisted. "Because we felt that turning the page to ‘26 would have been a little bit of an easy escape and wishful thinking that next year will be better, even though we didn't fully understand what the limitations of 2025 were.

“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. 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," Mekies said of Red Bull Racing's 2026 situation. "But we think we will get through these difficulties. As we did last year, we will get the 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.”

With Red Bull bringing their first-ever F1 power unit, being competitive was always going to be a challenge, especially when you have rivals like Mercedes and Ferrari in that particular department.

But Mekies insisted the team would not take it easy and treat 2026 like any other season; he said: “We try to do everything we can to make sure this is not a transition year, despite the size of the challenge, despite the new power unit challenge.

"We want to make sure that we are not in a transition year. No. We are not at all in that mode. We are in full attack mode. As we said, not happy about the starting point.

"But if you walk in Milton Keynes right now, there is fire in every single department. There is a burning fire of wanting to go back as fast as possible to a more competitive car, to a better position.

“And that's what you feel in Milton Keynes today, is that burning drive to get enough understanding and development to the car in a way that we can outperform the development of the competition and get back up," Mekies concluded. (Source: Beyond The Grid)