Red Bull’s RB22 on a diet: major weight-saving upgrades heading to Miami. Red Bull working to shed weight: upgrades coming at Miami Grand Prix.

Too much weight

The start of the 2026 season has been far from easy for the Red Bull Racing team. The Milton Keynes-based squad entered the new F1 regulatory era facing the additional challenge of their new in-house power unit, which naturally is still in its development phase and has required a steep learning curve. Another major issue that has emerged in the opening races, similar to what happened in 2022, is the car’s weight.

Everyone in the paddock has confirmed that the RB22 driven by Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar is significantly overweight. After the Chinese Grand Prix, some speculated that the car exceeded the minimum weight by as much as 20 kilograms. However, a recent analysis by RacingNews365 estimated the RB22’s excess weight to be around 9-10 kilograms, still enough to impact performance in the ultra-competitive Formula 1 field.

Miami: time to slim down

The team, led by Laurent Mekies, has therefore started working intensively to put the RB22 on a “diet.” In theory, the updates intended to address at least part of these issues were originally scheduled for the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend. However, as widely known, that race has been removed from the calendar, along with – at least for now – the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. As a result, the introduction of the upgrades, which among other things aim to reduce the car’s overall weight, will be postponed to early May for the Miami Grand Prix weekend.

This package of improvements is expected to gain at least a couple of tenths of a second per lap, the time currently being lost by Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar due to the extra kilos carried by the RB22. If successful, these upgrades could significantly improve Red Bull’s competitiveness as the season progresses, particularly against rivals Ferrari, Mercedes, and the rest of the F1 grid.

Red Bull’s ability to successfully shed this weight in Miami will be a defining moment for their 2026 campaign. In a season where the technical hierarchy is still being established, regaining those lost tenths could be the difference between fighting in the midfield and challenging for the podium. As the team heads to Florida, the focus will remain squarely on whether the RB22 can finally hit the scales at the optimum limit and allow its drivers to showcase the true potential of the new Red Bull power unit.