2026 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[basti313]

So will this year be considered a Mekies year or is there still overlap from Horner in the ownership/development of the car and engine?

Surely all the work that was developed under Horner has already been updated?

By the time the season starts, very little of the early work will have remained, so consider this a Mekies year.

I guess it really depends upon when they made the transition to the '26 car. Since they seemed to have developed later, not sure how much influence Horner had on the '26 car, hence the question.

I do not think Horner ever took strategic discissions in the car development itself. The transition itself, yes. But besides this I do not see how we can talk about a Horner or Mekies car.

[AR3-GP]

As Bearman says, there are limits to this. Car dynamics are always in the eye of the beholder; one driver's good balance can be another's excessive oversteer and even Verstappen has a point where the rear is beyond his capacity to control. But as Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu says, if you can handle that kind of instability it allows you to be enormously fast over one lap.

"If the car's 100% stable, you cannot turn - only go straight," Komatsu tells The Race. "So to be able to turn the car, you have to make it less stable. Then it's just a sliding scale of degree.

"That's why Max is so amazing, he can drive the car which has got, let's say, the least amount of stability, but he can be incredibly accurate in any conditions, any circuit, any tyres. It's incredible. Ollie is definitely more towards that direction compared to people like Esteban and Nico [Hulkenberg]. Because he's able to handle that ultimate one-lap performance, he's incredible.

"Clearly, Ollie can tolerate less stability than many other drivers. I can imagine Max is the same, but in a very extreme sense. I never worked with Max, I don't know where he is on this, but I can imagine he's very, very extreme."

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the- ... ure-trait/

Interesting.

[Henk_v]

I do not really see this. Even something like a front wing takes at least two weeks on CFD and manufacturing in the best case. So even if they just copy a wing from another car, draw it within a day and run CFD optimization very short...it would be a stretch to have something that involves the full car aero in the second Bahrain test. This is only three weeks.

The teams won't have time to copy designs, but altering a current design, or an existing alternative should be doable.

Let's say they have 3 options, and discover their preferred option isn't aligned to the data, but a combination of 2 and 3 will give the result they want.

Why should this be quicker? One week optimization and two weeks production is still needed for anything more complex than an engine cover.

I'm not sure on the details, but it used to be that only the parts on the car for a race weekend were part of the cost cap. We' ve seen (implied) many times that these tests determine what kind of parts to take to the first race. Possibly out of several available options. RB could afford to develop 5 front wings if they want and trash 4

[sucof]

As Bearman says, there are limits to this. Car dynamics are always in the eye of the beholder; one driver's good balance can be another's excessive oversteer and even Verstappen has a point where the rear is beyond his capacity to control. But as Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu says, if you can handle that kind of instability it allows you to be enormously fast over one lap.

"If the car's 100% stable, you cannot turn - only go straight," Komatsu tells The Race. "So to be able to turn the car, you have to make it less stable. Then it's just a sliding scale of degree.

"That's why Max is so amazing, he can drive the car which has got, let's say, the least amount of stability, but he can be incredibly accurate in any conditions, any circuit, any tyres. It's incredible. Ollie is definitely more towards that direction compared to people like Esteban and Nico [Hulkenberg]. Because he's able to handle that ultimate one-lap performance, he's incredible.

"Clearly, Ollie can tolerate less stability than many other drivers. I can imagine Max is the same, but in a very extreme sense. I never worked with Max, I don't know where he is on this, but I can imagine he's very, very extreme."

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the- ... ure-trait/

Interesting.

This is over simplification.
There are many types of instabilities.
I will be convinced about Verstappen when I'll see him in other cars where he still outperforms others.
There are instabilities that can be used for good and others which simply make the car worse.
I am still sure the RedBull of the last years were crafted well in this regard, set to be only instable how Verstappen likes, how a car is still benefiting.
While many if not most other cars on the grid were instable in the wrong ways.

[AR3-GP]

As Bearman says, there are limits to this. Car dynamics are always in the eye of the beholder; one driver's good balance can be another's excessive oversteer and even Verstappen has a point where the rear is beyond his capacity to control. But as Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu says, if you can handle that kind of instability it allows you to be enormously fast over one lap.

"If the car's 100% stable, you cannot turn - only go straight," Komatsu tells The Race. "So to be able to turn the car, you have to make it less stable. Then it's just a sliding scale of degree.

"That's why Max is so amazing, he can drive the car which has got, let's say, the least amount of stability, but he can be incredibly accurate in any conditions, any circuit, any tyres. It's incredible. Ollie is definitely more towards that direction compared to people like Esteban and Nico [Hulkenberg]. Because he's able to handle that ultimate one-lap performance, he's incredible.

"Clearly, Ollie can tolerate less stability than many other drivers. I can imagine Max is the same, but in a very extreme sense. I never worked with Max, I don't know where he is on this, but I can imagine he's very, very extreme."

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the- ... ure-trait/

Interesting.

This is over simplification.
There are many types of instabilities.
I will be convinced about Verstappen when I'll see him in other cars where he still outperforms others.
There are instabilities that can be used for good and others which simply make the car worse.
I am still sure the RedBull of the last years were crafted well in this regard, set to be only instable how Verstappen likes, how a car is still benefiting.
While many if not most other cars on the grid were instable in the wrong ways.

[Emag]

As Bearman says, there are limits to this. Car dynamics are always in the eye of the beholder; one driver's good balance can be another's excessive oversteer and even Verstappen has a point where the rear is beyond his capacity to control. But as Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu says, if you can handle that kind of instability it allows you to be enormously fast over one lap.

"If the car's 100% stable, you cannot turn - only go straight," Komatsu tells The Race. "So to be able to turn the car, you have to make it less stable. Then it's just a sliding scale of degree.

"That's why Max is so amazing, he can drive the car which has got, let's say, the least amount of stability, but he can be incredibly accurate in any conditions, any circuit, any tyres. It's incredible. Ollie is definitely more towards that direction compared to people like Esteban and Nico [Hulkenberg]. Because he's able to handle that ultimate one-lap performance, he's incredible.

"Clearly, Ollie can tolerate less stability than many other drivers. I can imagine Max is the same, but in a very extreme sense. I never worked with Max, I don't know where he is on this, but I can imagine he's very, very extreme."

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the- ... ure-trait/

Interesting.

This is over simplification.
There are many types of instabilities.
I will be convinced about Verstappen when I'll see him in other cars where he still outperforms others.
There are instabilities that can be used for good and others which simply make the car worse.
I am still sure the RedBull of the last years were crafted well in this regard, set to be only instable how Verstappen likes, how a car is still benefiting.
While many if not most other cars on the grid were instable in the wrong ways.

I don't think we will ever get this. Max almost certainly will retire at RedBull, if we take what he has said about his goals and planned timespan in the sport seriously.

What we have so far and we will get are the following :

1 - His performance against a teammate at RedBull before RedBull became a Max-first team (2016-2017)
2 - His performance against a teammate at RedBul on a car that is brand new on a fresh regulation set.

For 1, it's up to you on how much value his performance as a literal teenager has for comparisons. It should be noted that he started to outperform Daniel quite consistently by 2018 already though. What was a problem at the time was his "short-fuse". Generally impatient with his moves causing unnecessary incidents quite often. Ironically, this still turns up every once in a while even today (e.g Spain in 2025), but he has matured enough to where it's not as bad as it's used to be.

And for 2, I think it's far more telling actually.
You have to look at the performance between Max and Sergio only in the first couple of races in 2022, up until Spain/
Why? Because that's where the first "big" upgrade package came for RedBull and we can assume the car starts to take a "Max" direction from there on. Sergio does take Monaco and Baku qualifying after Spain, but Baku is probably his best track and Monaco pole was a bit shady to say the least.

Anyway, on those first couple of races as the "cleanest" reference point, the gaps are much more reasonable compared to what we have seen from RedBull 2nd seats since mid 2023 and onwards. The gap in qualifying was generally around 1-2 tenths. And of course it was a bit more pronounced in racepace where you would expect someone like Max puts it up a notch with impeccable consistency. I think the comparison between them in those first couple of races is pretty telling in itself. And to be fair to Checo, he also managed to maintain a reasonable gap to Max in the first couple of races of both 2023 and 2024 as well. He just completely fell off the cliff as soon as upgrades started to roll in.

In my personal opinion from what I have seen, I think that perhaps in qualifying Max doesn't win a h2h against every single driver in this grid (maybe Charles can take a h2h quali against him in a season, but I don't know, just my guess, it would depend on what car they're driving), but on a race h2h I personally don't think anyone can take it against Max from the current grid. In any case, on a more "even playing ground" these sort of gaps we have seen, especially this season, should not appear. They are quite inflated in my opinion and have come as a consequence of the car being developed into a way where Max has been the only one who has been able to extract the full performance from it.

The next reference point will be Isack this season. We will have some more data to put into that "clean" comparison bucket. Should be interesting. I hope Isack isn't sh*ting his pants
Unlike the previous 2 "victims" he has the advantage of going up against Max on a clean slate, like Checo did in 2022.

[Badger]

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the- ... ure-trait/

Interesting.

This is over simplification.
There are many types of instabilities.
I will be convinced about Verstappen when I'll see him in other cars where he still outperforms others.
There are instabilities that can be used for good and others which simply make the car worse.
I am still sure the RedBull of the last years were crafted well in this regard, set to be only instable how Verstappen likes, how a car is still benefiting.
While many if not most other cars on the grid were instable in the wrong ways.

It matches what we've seen. When RB had a well balanced car in 2022 and 2023 Checo looked pretty good, but Max looked like the most dominant driver ever, racking up 15 and 19 wins respectively. The car becoming difficult had nothing to do with Max and everything to do with RB's concept hitting a ceiling. "Easy" development went away and suddenly every performance upgrade came with a penalty in terms of balance, Checo couldn't handle that but Max could.

[AR3-GP]

----

[f1isgood]

Its a futile exercise to try to convince people of Verstappen's greatness. In the end I always ask why bother when the other posters simply take a biased position and won't change their mind? Some posters here also think car behaves same on different fuel loads just to make a point. Useless to give engagement.

[Emag]

*cut

The point wasn’t that Red Bull sets out to build a 'Max car,' but there is a clear performance-bias in development for all teams. If an upgrade makes the car faster on paper, and Max is able to extract that lap time, then even if the car becomes 'peakier' or harder to drive, the engineers will keep going in that direction. At the end of the day, that's what Max cares about the most as well as his team, the results. If the results come at the expense of a car that is not 100% to his liking, then he will still go into that direction, no questions asked.

There’s also a bit of a contradiction in the adaptability argument. We can't credit Max's dominance to his ability to drive anything, and then simultaneously use the car's balance (like being understeery in early 2022) as an excuse for why the gap to Sergio was smaller. If the gap is purely down to talent, it should be constant. The fact that it fluctuates proves that car characteristics play a massive role in how large that margin looks.

I digress, the pattern in 2022, but by extension in 2023 and 2024 as well (where the weight is no longer a factor, if you want to cling to your point) is quite telling. Sergio was decently competitive each year until the first major upgrades arrived (Barcelona '22, Baku '23 and especially Hungary '23, and Imola '24). It’s not just about track types, because the tracks at the beginning of the season are different enough. It was a recurring shift where the car becomes more 'Max-aligned' and Sergio’s consistency falls off a cliff. Because it's not just about gaps growing, he became increasingly more error-prone and inconsistent as well.

As for Baku 2024, that's not a clean data point is it? Red Bull butchered Max’s setup with experimental floors and parts that weekend trying to come out of a development hell-hole they found themselves in the mid-to-end point of 2024. In Baku 2024 Max was totally off his usual pace, so you can't make comparisons there. He admitted that the setup changes made after FP3 totally ruined the car.

Anyway, I rest my case. I don't understand why people get so "overprotective" of Max sometimes the moment you paint him as anything else other than a literal god on human form.
Ultimately, you can acknowledge Max is a generational talent while also being realistic about the implications of what you're seeing on-track. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

[Sieper]

One thing that is forgotten here. Yes, Max sometimes gets too emotional, when he feels he has been wronged. That is one part of it, but those first years at redbull, 2016, 2017, he often was way ahead of Daniel, fighting for positions he had no business fighting for. And in Those fights, it sometimes also went wrong for him. He was driving with a different mind set, we don’t have the car so I am going to take risk. That hurt his overall result. If you look at the individual races imho Max was consistently faster already after the first 6 races. You know, when they went in the Max direction, as some people try to make you believe. I think it is simply Max getting the feel for the car.

[sucof]

I would like also add is that Maxes strength lies in his father too. Even before he entered F1, there was a clear hype around him.
What I mean, he is hugely benefiting from that his father understood how to win in F1 includes a team built around the driver, and his father worked super hard to realise this.
And I am sure he succeeded.
His fathers influence in the team goes as far that he party was responsible to oust Horner.
And I think Jos understood all these when he was around Schumacher. And he multiplied it for Max.
I am not saying Max is not a good driver, but I am sure we all would like to see him around other teams, other good drivers in "regular" F1 cars to make sure where he is.

Anyways, back to topic, let's see if RB without Newey can build such a specialised car for his liking, or the gap will be smaller this year.

[AR3-GP]

Speaking exclusively to RacingNews365, Buemi offered an honest assessment of where the project currently stands, whilst acknowledging both the scale of the challenge and the uncertainty that still surrounds it.

"I think it’s going quite well," Buemi said when asked about the progress of Red Bull’s 2026 car.

"Keeping in mind that it’s a massive, massive challenge for Red Bull to make its own engine, you can’t really tell until you put the car on the track and compare yourself with the others.

"Yes, you know if you’re reliable or if you have big issues, but in terms of competitiveness, you need to be racing the other guys."

https://racingnews365.com/red-bull-driv ... new-f1-car

[Sieper]

The redbull team now IS a completely different team. Also the car, Max has been a WDC in two different regulation already. So it is not like that he still has to prove what he can do in another team. He has already.

[Wouter]

We all know Yuki looooves to cook. He will have his own restaurant one day.



Meanwhile, Max was in Lisbon last night at a restaurant for authentic Portuguese dishes, and he even got to play chef for a bit.
Max can't cook at all!

https://www.facebook.com/solardospresun ... 4152012013