Red Bull Racing has fallen behind again in the 2026 Formula 1 season, after a period of progress, and the performance in recent stages has once again exposed the limitations of the RB22. Even with good results, Max Verstappen has managed to reach the podium a few times without the car’s pace supporting those results.
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The team started the current season with a disadvantage of up to one second to the leaders in the first four races. During the break caused by the postponement of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia stages, Red Bull introduced major upgrade packages and reduced the gap to about half a second, or even less, on some circuits.
This progress even put Verstappen in a position to challenge Mercedes. The Dutch driver almost took pole at the Monaco GP and also showed very competitive performance in Austria, but the progress did not hold in the following stages. In England and Belgium, the gap increased again, while the same scenario appeared in Hungary and Zandvoort.
Verstappen’s results, however, may hide the true performance of the car. He was second in Austria, third in Belgium, and second in Hungary, but the race pace was not enough to explain these positions. In England, for example, Antonelli and the two Ferraris had better performance, while in Belgium even Isack Hadjar showed better pace under certain conditions.
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Hungary was even more revealing. Verstappen had only the sixth-best race pace and was about half a second per lap behind Lando Norris, the race winner. The second place came after problems for Antonelli, strategic decisions by Ferrari, and Oscar Piastri’s retirement, not due to a sudden recovery in Red Bull’s performance.
In Zandvoort, the trend continued. Verstappen was again slower in qualifying against the main rivals and retired from the race on the very first lap after spinning alone and crashing hard into the barrier, while Liam Lawson, who replaced Hadjar that weekend, was about one second per lap behind the leaders in race pace. In the Sprint race, Verstappen finished seventh in pure pace, ahead only of Lewis Hamilton among the faster drivers.
Thus, Red Bull Racing remains only the fourth fastest team this year. Verstappen’s recent podiums were favored by strategic errors from Ferrari and retirements from Mercedes and McLaren.
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