2026 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[f1isgood]

I doubt what happened last year plays a big role in what we see today and in hindsight I'm glad they tried everything possible. To critcize them for trying isn't fair imho.


Mclaren stopped their development mid season, Ferrari even sooner and neither will come close winning this championship unless Mercedes fumbles big time. Not even one of the smaller teams that put every effort into 2026 made more than a decent impression.
It was always going to be a transition year for Red Bull.

I think IF 2026 came at the cost of being the fifth best team, it was a terrible decision. You cannot spin it any other way. That is assuming they got this car right (which I actually doubt).

Mercedes developed till Baku, much longer than Ferrari and McLaren. They had all the spotlight on them and did perfectly well to transition comfortably.

In F1, if you have the right targets and right people you don't need excuses. Red Bull have completely dropped the ball and questions need to be asked, especially when they are 1s off pace with an engine that's very close to Mercedes.
Even with weight reduction and all (which once again shouldn't be an issue and yet here we are) they are at least half a second off. I am not sure what people see in a "Transition" year that will magically make them find 1s more laptime than other top teams. Red Bull aren't doing things like a top team anymore.

Even during Mercedes dominance era, chassis hasn't been this poor since 2015.

[Valeo]

I mean whether their concept is right or wrong is a different matter but it sounded like, if they just quit the 2025 development earlier, it would look much better now - I just doubt that's the case as we see in the field. That's why I said I don't think it's fair.

[FittingMechanics]

They didn't give him a car that could win every race and in proper circumstances that's the only way they could have hoped to do anything.

That McLaren and their drivers were pretty incompetent flatters the job Red Bull did. They didn't have a single dominant race even when they won their races.

In the end you cannot say with a straight face that Red Bull was quicker than McLaren on pure pace for more than 5 races all year last season at best.

I don't see any serious turnaround. When there's talk of potential and unlocking performance the story is always Mercedes in 2022. This upgrade or that upgrade will fix it and so on.

Sure the Monza upgrade last year was fantastic but it was likely a fluke with the ground effect cars.

Edit: RBPT is absolutely fantastic though.

RedBull hasn't had a dominant car since 2023 and the first 5 races of 2024. Dominance is not required for them to win. If the car is in the ballpark, Max will make the difference. If you're within a tenth, the most consistent driver can make the difference.

The car last year was good enough to put Max in that position from Monza onwards with the exception of Mexico. Otherwise they just wouldn't have won anything in the second half either. So people here should know when to give a little credit because what RedBull did last year, is nothing to scoff at. The driver is ultimately the one who has to deliver, but if the car remained as it was in the first half of the season, Max wouldn't have been able to do anything.

The potential is there for RedBull. They just need to do what they did last year and deliver some good upgrades into that car.

Ultimately they lost the title.

If you want to close and overtake 100 point gap and that too in 9 races you better have a dominant car OR a never ending supply of miracles. Oscar and Lando and McLaren can only give you so much.

Red Bull in retrospect looked to have thrown everything at last year instead of looking at the medium and long term prospects of remaining a top team.

Thats a terrible mistake. They might eventually catch up but there's zero evidence they will match Mercedes at any point in the near future.

As it stands the chassis is simply not good enough. They will always be behind.

Doing what McLaren did in 23/24 is an extreme outlier event. It's absolutely not the norm (see Merc/Ferrari the last four years) and expecting Red Bull to reach that stage would be wishful thinking at best and being delusional at worst.

They probably felt forced to do that in order to keep Verstappen.

[pantherxxx]

" there's zero evidence they will match Mercedes at any point in the near future."

Strictly speaking, you can't have empirical evidence for something that hasn't happened yet. The future hasn't occurred, so there are no facts about it to serve as evidence. There's no evidence that Russell will be the champion.

[Henk_v]

First 2 races in 22' were also garbage and everybody was having emotions about these new cars and the problems.