Red Bull F1 Team Principal Laurent Mekies opened up about their primary development goal during the month-long break in April and the gains—both tangible and intangible—they made after introducing a substantial upgrade package for the RB22 during the 2026 Miami GP weekend.
The Milton Keynes outfit’s unmistakable competitive turnaround in Miami, with Max Verstappen securing a front-row start behind Mercedes’s Kimi Antonelli, coincided with another comprehensive upgrade of their latest F1 challenger.
Following an aerodynamic upgrade at Suzuka, which saw major revisions to the RB22’s bodywork configuration, Red Bull brought a package to Miami with seven updated elements, including their own version of the rotating ‘Macarena’ rear wing. Besides targeting weight reduction, they also modified the steering rack to enable better car control.
Mekies on Red Bull’s main development objective during April break
Speaking in a print media session after the F1 race in Miami, Laurent Mekies shed more light on the factor that further compounded Red Bull’s performance deficit to the other top teams in the first three rounds of the 2026 campaign and disclosed what their primary focus was during the unanticipated break in April when it came to car development.
Emphasising how the RB22’s lack of consistency prevented the drivers from pushing it to its limits, Mekies revealed that the team, apart from chasing planned performance gains, decided to concentrate their efforts on improving the car’s drivability after enduring a difficult race weekend in Japan.
“Yeah, I think it relates to your question, and it relates to what we said after Suzuka here. After Suzuka on Sunday night we said to each other, ‘look, regardless of our performance deficit overall in terms of development compared to where we are, maybe late push last year or whatever you want, regardless of that, we do not give at the moment a consistent car to our drivers, a car they can push with confidence lap to lap, corner to corner’.
“And that was most of the work that has been done in these five weeks’ break in addition to the normal development.”
Whether Red Bull’s gains were all tangible
Although he acknowledged that their development trajectory was shaped by two different concerns, Laurent Mekies maintained that the benefits Red Bull reaped were all measurable in terms of the lap times they gained at the Miami GP.
The Frenchman explained that the RB22 becoming more compliant ultimately led to faster lap times, even though making the drivers feel more confident in the car was the primary end goal.
“So yes, there is a split between the two, whatever the number or whatever the split is, but of course it was tangible, it is lap time.
“We knew we were losing a serious amount of lap time with that lack of confidence the drivers could have in the car.”
Following his P5 finish in Sunday’s race at the Miami International Autodrome, Verstappen had remarked that fixing the defective steering system ahead of the weekend was a big relief.
In reference to the Dutchman’s statement, Mekies admitted that the steering rack was partly responsible for the RB22’s instability and the drivers’ lack of confidence in it. At the same time, he clarified that there were several other factors that contributed to the car’s shortcomings and that they have yet to resolve them all.
“The steering was an aspect. We had quite a few other aspects as well, and we still have a few to sort out.”
