Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has said that its late-season turnaround has given the team an “important” boost ahead of the 2026 Formula 1 season.
The Milton Keynes-based squad managed to reverse its fortunes in the latter part of the campaign, with Max Verstappen clawing back a three-digit point deficit.
Verstappen eventually missed out on the title by only two points, in what was, despite an ultimately fruitless season, a remarkable achievement.
The turnaround came as Red Bull managed to make significant improvements to its RB21 challenger, which had been a troublesome beast.
And with Mekies offering more technical experience compared to predecessor Christian Horner, the team was able to put the frighteners on McLaren towards the end of the season.
But next year, Red Bull is bracing itself for a tougher year, as F1’s new 50-50 hybrid era coincides with a brand-new power unit partnership with Ford.
Mekies noted the significance of the turnaround and how it will translate into 2026, with its in-house power unit powering Verstappen and new team-mate Isack Hadjar.
“I guess the first thing we look at is a race win,” Mekies told media including Motorsport Week.
“A win is a win — it’s difficult enough. So, race win, dominant pole, fundamentally a dominant race pace on a difficult track.
“I think for everyone who has worked hard on this car, it’s very telling. We were not dominating in Qatar, and to finish on a note like that, on a clean race, for us, is the dominating factor.
“Then, if you look back to the season, truly think the turnaround was sensational, and the girls and the guys back at home should be proud of what has been achieved.
“I don’t think it has happened very often in the last few years or decades, and that’s what we look at. It allows us to go into the winter with a level of confidence in our tools, in our methodologies, in our approaches. That is important.
“Some of that, we’ll be able to carry on to next year’s regulations. Some of that will become less relevant…”
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Whilst people may point towards what the team might have done to have found just enough for Verstappen to have taken a fifth straight title, Mekies preferred to give a more glass-half-full approach.
“And I don’t think we should now go into making the list of the circumstances in which we could have found these two points,” he said.
“No, we will probably do it internally, in a way that we will learn from the mistakes we make, but we don’t need to wait for the end of the championship to do that. We always do it anyway.
“But the two points could be everywhere. What is important is that we, as a group, turned things around in the way that has been done, and once again, all the credit should go to our people in Milton Keynes for having believed in this year’s project and having been proven right.”
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