Red Bull Formula 1 Team Principal Laurent Mekies has admitted the team was not satisfied with its performance at the Hungarian Grand Prix and has set a clear target for the rest of 2026.
The results of the Hungarian GP show that Red Bull secured a second and sixth place finish, one of its best results of the season.
But both drivers were far from happy with the RB22 at the Hungaroring, with Verstappen in particular highly vocal about the car’s performance.
The four-time world champion’s gripes led to a spin the dying seconds of Q3, and a race where he failed to match the pace of the frontrunners.
Meanwhile teammate Isack Hadjar badly struggled for pace in the opening stint of the race, and was reduced to a supporting role for Verstappen.
After the race, Mekies reaffirmed the team’s goals, to win races – with Red Bull currently on course to score its first winless season since 2015.
“We don’t sign for anything else other than winning races,” he said after the race.
“I have to take the opportunity again to say, ‘well done’ to our people on chassis side, PU [power unit] side, because turning around… starting from 1.2 seconds, finishing three tenths, half the season in with this level of competition.
“You [media] have pointed out where we started, and I think we know where we started and why we started there. When we put things in perspective with the late push of last year and with the PU adventures, I have to say, everyone PU side, chassis side, some lap time progressions have been brought through updates.
“Some other lap time progressions have been brought through a lot of people in the background; our 2,000 people have been working to bring a little bit more to every single area.
“Some of them you never hear about, but it put us back in the positions where we are now fighting every race for the podium.
“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 having a race car that has the pace to win on merit.”
Red Bull still identifying car issues?
Mekies took the positives away from the weekend, but alluded to the team needing to understand why the RB22 continues to be sensitive to certain conditions and circuits.
“I think it’s fair to say that only Lando was clearly faster than Max, and I think everyone else he could have matched or beaten, so I guess it’s positive because it means we have margin to improve with the current package,” he said.
“We’ll try to see why we are so much on the edge of car balance, corner balance, car performing, car not performing, because it’s been hard work for the drivers but also the team in these last few races to keep the car in its window.
“I think we never managed to give Max and Isack a car they could push with. For example, if I look back to driver feedback in Spa or in Austria, they would probably have said that the car was pretty much ballpark to how it should feel and to what it allows them to do.
“That was never the case this weekend, and certainly worse on Friday and Saturday compared to [Sunday], but still I have to say that it probably was not giving a very good feeling to the drivers.”
“Our car has been very sensitive to a number of small factors since race one, and we have suffered a lot in the first part of the season as well,” he said.
“It’s enough that, if you pick up a bit of damage, let it be on gravel, on the kerbs, you get a different wind direction, and everything is a little bit on the edge in terms of performance.
“Not only do you probably pay a price for lap time, but it also removes the driver’s confidence. It’s not a new topic, but it’s something where probably we have more potential to extract.
“Nonetheless, because it’s Max, because it’s Isack, they have very often managed to extract the performance anyway.
“But, on the tracks where we have managed to [give them a good balance], we have seen an improved performance. I think it’s about consistency of the delivery of the performance, and it’s been a topic for us this season, and it’s probably where some of the potential improvement is in the second part of the year.”
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