Laurent Mekies bans the word "surrender" after bleak 2026 start

Red Bull’s 2026 start under pressure

Laurent Mekies has reportedly drawn a firm line inside Red Bull’s factory, banning staff from discussing the idea of giving up on the 2026 season after the team’s difficult opening to the new regulations era.

Red Bull’s start has been bleak. The RB22 has not matched the pace of the cars developed by Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren in China and Japan, and Max Verstappen’s charge from P20 to P6 in Australia now looks more like a red herring than a sign of progress.

A car struggling to deliver

Verstappen described the RB22 as “undriveable” in Japan, saying he was battling understeer on turn-in and oversteer under acceleration at Suzuka. Isack Hadjar was equally blunt, calling Red Bull’s chassis “terrible” after finishing P12, while Verstappen could manage only P11 in qualifying.

The picture only worsened when Alpine’s Pierre Gasly out-qualified Verstappen for the second consecutive Grand Prix and then kept him behind. By the time Red Bull left Japan, the team had slipped to sixth in the constructors’ standings, with Haas also ahead of Red Bull and Alpine after the first three rounds.

Mekies demands a fightback

According to FormulaTecnica, Mekies is not interested in treating 2026 as a write-off. He has reportedly “categorically banned” the word “surrender” at Red Bull’s Milton Keynes factory and wants the team to focus entirely on finding the RB22’s weaknesses and improving it quickly.

Rather than accepting a transitional year, Mekies is pushing every department to attack the problem with urgency. The mood is said to be driven by a desire for redemption after such a poor beginning.

What comes next for Red Bull

What success will look like for Red Bull in 2026 remains uncertain, but the scale of the problem is clear. It has already been suggested that the team may be considering abandoning the RB22 and moving to an entirely new car later in the season.

There is also talk that Red Bull may need a year to develop a new chassis, with the current car reportedly overweight and costing them around eight-tenths of a second per lap against their quickest rivals.

For now, Red Bull will take upgrades to Miami to assess whether the RB22 can still be rescued. The value of those changes will be crucial for Mekies, who is attempting to reverse the team’s fortunes for the second time in less than a year after replacing Christian Horner last July.

Mekies is also said to be dealing with a difficult atmosphere at the factory following such a poor start. Verstappen sits ninth in the drivers’ standings after three rounds, three points behind Gasly in eighth, while Hadjar is 12th with four points.