F1 2026 mid-season grades: Red Bull stumbles but summer rally shows glimmer of progress

Red Bull made an admirable start to life as a bona fide power unit manufacturer, but on the chassis side the team has been lagging behind its top rivals since day one. A late push towards the summer is salvaging a C- grade rather than a less satisfactory score.

The bad

Red Bull started 2026 as F1's fourth-fastest team in Melbourne. Initially, a lot of that deficit was attributed to the energy deployment and lack of driveability of its otherwise admirably strong unit, as well as very poor starts.

But along the way, Red Bull has also fallen into a familiar hole of having a car that is hard to set up and get into the sweet spot and then stay there, with both Max Verstappen and team-mate Isack Hadjar suffering from unpredictable handling traits at most events.

Those troubles reignited the usual rumours about Verstappen's future, which has almost become a summer tradition for Red Bull. The best way to quell those doubts is to simply produce a competitive car. That may still happen, but in the championship the damage is already done with Red Bull now destined to stay fourth as Verstappen holds sixth place going into the summer break.

What isn't helping Red Bull is that its V6 engine has been determined to be the benchmark on the grid, effectively locking Red Bull-Ford Powertrains out of adding upgrades to it.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

The good

The good news is that Red Bull has been making big steps, even if the car's behaviour isn't always compliant. From being over a second behind in Australia, the Milton Keynes squad has been throwing a huge number of aerodynamic upgrades at the RB22, which has allowed Verstappen to grab four podiums, including three in the last four races. Whether or not Red Bull will be able to sustain that development pace is a different matter.

Another positive is the performance of Red Bull's second car, which has historically been a pain point for the squad. Hadjar has acquitted himself well in his first season with the big team, sticking close to Verstappen in qualifying while becoming a reliable top six finisher.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Lando Norris, McLaren

What they're saying

Laurent Mekies: "Don't count on me to say that we are satisfied, because we are not. We will not be satisfied until we go back to have a race car that has the pace to win on merit.
 
"At some stage, we'll need to make a call on the balance between this year and next year, and I expect that to happen earlier than what we did last year. We have brought a huge amount of development to the car to try to correct as soon as possible the large deficit we had initially, and it's probably difficult to imagine that we will continue at that rhythm, but we nonetheless need to see what is the best way to try and close these last three tenths."

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