Red Bull Racing must slow down the update pace of the RB22 in the second half of the 2026 Formula 1 season. The information was confirmed by the team principal, Laurent Mekies, who stated it is unlikely to maintain the same volume of development after the changes made since the start of the championship.
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According to Mekies, the team launched a major technical offensive to quickly recover the competitiveness lost in the early stages. The strategy resulted in thirty-six updates to the car throughout the season, but the category’s budget cap should force the team to reassess the allocation of resources between the current project and the 2027 one.
After the Hungarian round, Mekies explained that the decision on when to reduce development of the current car should be made earlier than last year: “I don’t know how it will be for the other teams, but certainly there will come a time when we need to decide the balance between this year and next. I hope this happens sooner than it did last year, especially because of the regulations,” he said.
The executive highlighted that the intense development program was motivated by the need to quickly fix the problems presented by the RB22 at the start of the current season: “We brought a huge amount of development to the car between the first race and now, to try to fix as quickly as possible the big deficit we initially had. It’s probably hard to imagine that we will continue at this pace, but we still need to evaluate the best way to approach the remaining rounds,” he said.
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Even with the car’s evolution, Max Verstappen continues to point out limitations in the RB22’s behavior. After securing a podium in Hungary, the Dutchman said he faced the same difficulties seen in qualifying: “I was still struggling with the same problems. The car was very loose at the rear, the tires degraded a lot and, honestly, I don’t quite understand how we finished second,” he added.
Verstappen also described the result as better than expected given the circumstances: “As a team, we had a very strong performance. It was a result above what we expected, considering how the car behaved. Also, when I got out of the car I noticed there was damage, which made everything even harder. It was one of the toughest races of the year in terms of car balance. Being on the podium was an incredible result for us,” concluded the Dutchman.
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