Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has admitted that Max Verstappen’s third-place finish at the 2026 United States Grand Prix was no longer enough to satisfy the team, despite its remarkable recovery in recent months. The Dutch driver finished behind race winner Kimi Antonelli and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at Austin, with tyre degradation, persistent start problems and ongoing power unit development among the weaknesses preventing Red Bull from consistently fighting for victories.
“We’re a little frustrated with third place, and that’s good news.” With those words, Laurent Mekies summed up Red Bull’s mood after a race in which Max Verstappen was unable to challenge for victory. It was a revealing reaction from a team whose expectations have changed considerably as the season has progressed.
Only a few months ago, disappointment at finishing on the podium would have been difficult to imagine. Red Bull has gradually recovered much of the technical deficit that compromised its performance during the first part of the championship, returning to regular contention at the front of the field. A podium finish is no longer necessarily a result to celebrate, but one that can leave the team dissatisfied.
However, Austin also demonstrated that Red Bull’s recovery is not yet complete. The RB22 has become substantially more competitive, but several technical weaknesses continue to restrict its potential. As the gaps between the leading teams become smaller, even apparently minor limitations can have a significant influence on the final result.
Laurent Mekies admits Kimi Antonelli was faster than Max Verstappen at Austin
Laurent Mekies did not attempt to make excuses for Max Verstappen’s failure to challenge Kimi Antonelli for victory. The Mercedes driver had superior pace, and the Red Bull team principal acknowledged that changing strategy or tyre selection would not necessarily have altered the outcome of their direct contest.
“I think Kimi had more pace than us. We can’t use the tyres or strategy as an excuse. He was faster today, and we have to acknowledge that,” Laurent Mekies explained.
The situation becomes more complicated, however, when examining Max Verstappen’s battle with Charles Leclerc for second place. Red Bull opted for a two-stop strategy but failed to exploit one of the strengths the RB22 has frequently demonstrated: its ability to extract competitive performance from the softer tyre compounds.
“Normally, we have a certain advantage over our rivals on the softer tyres, but today we couldn’t exploit it. Max suffered quite high degradation on both sets of soft tyres, and that didn’t help us make the second stop effective.”
Red Bull tyre degradation undermines Max Verstappen’s two-stop strategy
The second stint proved particularly significant for Red Bull. Max Verstappen ran on soft tyres following a decision that had not formed part of the team’s original strategy, and the resulting degradation compromised the effectiveness of its approach.
Red Bull now intends to revisit that decision and understand why the tyre compound behaved differently from expectations. The strong performance of the hard tyres on rival cars has also raised questions about whether an alternative strategy might have produced a better result.
Laurent Mekies did not rule out the possibility that a different tyre choice could have helped Max Verstappen in his fight with Charles Leclerc, particularly given the relatively small gap between the two drivers at the finish.
“When you finish a few seconds behind Charles, it’s inevitable to think that a more durable tyre could have helped you. We’ll never know, but it’s clear that today we couldn’t extract the advantage from the softer compounds that we normally have.”
There is therefore no certainty that a different strategy would have secured second place for Max Verstappen. Nevertheless, Red Bull was unable to make full use of its tyres, while Ferrari and Mercedes found the hard compound to be an important asset during the race.
The outcome was particularly interesting given the pre-race expectations surrounding tyre behaviour at the Circuit of the Americas. Ahead of the Grand Prix, Pirelli’s analysis of Austin tyre strategy had suggested that the softer compounds could play a central role, with the hard tyre expected to be less prominent. The race ultimately demonstrated how different the competitive picture could become once the teams encountered the conditions over a full Grand Prix distance.
Red Bull’s F1 start problems could require major hardware changes for 2027
The other major weakness identified by Laurent Mekies concerns race starts, an issue that has affected Red Bull since the beginning of the 2026 Formula 1 season and has yet to receive a definitive solution.
The team principal explained that the problem is considerably more complex than it may appear from the outside. It is not simply a matter of clutch performance, but involves numerous technical areas, including the power unit, gearbox and systems responsible for controlling the delivery of torque to the driven wheels.
“Start performance involves practically every department in the company, probably with the exception of aerodynamics. We’ve made huge progress compared to the beginning of the year, when our starts were really poor, but we’re still not at the level of the best.”
Paradoxically, the weakness has become even more costly because Red Bull has improved the overall competitiveness of its car. When the RB22 was struggling to reach the leading positions, the consequences of a poor start were less significant in the fight for podiums and victories.
Now that Max Verstappen is regularly competing against the strongest drivers and cars, any loss of position at the start can have a much greater impact on the race.
“Now that the car has improved so much and we’re back fighting at the front, the deficit at the starts hurts even more because the rivals around us are very strong,” Laurent Mekies acknowledged.
The Red Bull team principal also admitted that a complete solution will take time. The team will continue searching for smaller improvements during the remaining races, but fully eliminating the deficit will require substantial hardware changes that are not expected until 2027.
That represents an important admission for Red Bull. Despite the improvements already achieved, the team knows it is likely to have to manage this weakness until the end of the current championship.
Laurent Mekies says Red Bull power unit development is far from complete
Red Bull’s technical recovery has also been accompanied by improvements to its internally developed power unit. However, Laurent Mekies rejected the suggestion that the engine project has reached a sufficiently mature stage for the team to concentrate its development resources exclusively on the chassis.
“You would struggle to find a single person at Red Bull Powertrains who believes the engine is now sorted. We’re working on huge improvements in every area of the power unit, exactly as we are with the chassis.”
Those comments underline the extent of the development work still taking place behind the scenes. Although Red Bull has already made substantial progress, the power unit remains an important area in which the team believes further performance can be found.
Laurent Mekies stressed that the development objectives extend well beyond maximum engine power. There are thousands of details related to driveability that can still be improved, and the interaction between the power unit and the car represents one of the project’s central priorities.
Indeed, one of the motivations behind Red Bull’s decision to develop its engine internally was the possibility of gaining a competitive advantage through closer coordination between different technical departments.
Rather than treating the power unit and chassis as entirely separate projects, Red Bull can pursue a more integrated approach to development, searching for improvements in the way the various systems operate together.
The message from Laurent Mekies is clear: Red Bull has achieved important progress, but its technical project is still far from reaching its full maturity.
Red Bull radio problems add to frustration after Austin podium
Max Verstappen’s third-place finish at Austin therefore leaves Red Bull with mixed feelings. On one hand, the result confirms that the team has returned to regular contention near the front of the Formula 1 field. On the other, it demonstrates that its improved competitiveness has not yet been matched by equally effective execution in every phase of a race weekend.
Communication problems over the team radio added another complication during the United States Grand Prix, marking the second consecutive race in which Red Bull encountered difficulties in this area.
Laurent Mekies acknowledged that the exact cause of the issue had not yet been fully identified. He also recognised that radio communication is not a problem that should require so much attention and effort from the team.
Although such difficulties may appear relatively minor compared with the underlying performance of the car, they contribute to the wider operational challenges Red Bull is still attempting to resolve.
Together with its start problems and inconsistent tyre management, these issues help explain why the team’s technical recovery has not yet translated into consistently achieving the maximum possible results.
Max Verstappen’s Austin podium shows how Red Bull’s ambitions have changed
The difference compared with the beginning of the season is nevertheless substantial. During the opening phase of the 2026 championship, Red Bull’s primary challenge was finding enough outright speed to compete with its strongest rivals.
That speed has now largely returned, although it is not always sufficient to secure victory. As a result, the team’s attention is increasingly shifting towards extracting the full potential of its car through better tyre management, more competitive starts and improved execution throughout the race weekend.
For Max Verstappen, finishing behind Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc at the Circuit of the Americas was another reminder that the final steps towards consistent competitiveness can be among the most difficult.
For Laurent Mekies, however, the frustration surrounding third place is also evidence of how far Red Bull has come. The team is no longer simply trying to recover lost ground; it is once again measuring itself against the standards required to win races.
That change in expectations may be the clearest indication of Red Bull’s progress, even if the Austin result also exposed the technical and operational weaknesses that still stand between Max Verstappen and more frequent victories.
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