Loading
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has shed light on the behind-the-scenes work that allowed the Milton Keynes outfit to take a meaningful step forward at the Miami Grand Prix — a circuit where four-time world champion Max Verstappen delivered the team's best result of the season so far.
The opening three rounds of the campaign had exposed real weaknesses in Red Bull's package, leaving the team lagging behind the front-runners and well off the pace that had defined their dominant recent years. Miami, however, offered a glimpse of progress, with Verstappen finishing fifth and expressing clear satisfaction with how the car had evolved.
According to Mekies, the turning point came immediately after the Japanese Grand Prix. The team used the five-week break before Miami not only to push forward with regular development work, but to address a more pressing and fundamental issue: the car's consistency and drivability.
"After Suzuka on Sunday night, we said to each other, look, regardless of our performance deficit overall in terms of development, compared to where we were late last year, regardless of that, we do not give, at the moment, a consistent car to our drivers, a car they can push with confidence, lap to lap, corner to corner," Mekies told media including RacingNews365.
The admission is a candid one. Red Bull were not simply slow — they were giving their drivers a machine that lacked the predictability needed to extract maximum performance on a sustained basis. That instability was costing them lap time, and Mekies made clear the team knew exactly how much.
"We knew we were losing a serious amount of lap time with that lack of confidence drivers would have in the car," he explained.
Among the areas addressed, Mekies specifically highlighted steering behaviour as one of the key problems — though he was careful to note it was far from the only one. "Steering was an aspect. We had quite a few other aspects as well, and we still have a few to sort out," he said, signalling that the work is ongoing despite the progress made in Miami.
The distinction Mekies drew between baseline development and this targeted rectification work is important. The five-week break was used in parallel for both — standard performance upgrades alongside the more surgical effort to bring the car into a window where drivers could genuinely trust it. As he put it: "That was most of the work that has been done in this five weeks' break, in addition to the normal development. So yes, there is a split between the two, whatever the number, whatever the split is. But of course, it was tangible. It is lap time."
For a deeper look at the specific technical updates Red Bull introduced in Miami alongside Ferrari and McLaren, this technical breakdown from the Miami Grand Prix offers detailed aerodynamic analysis of all three teams' upgrade packages.
With the team's best result of the season now in the bag, attention turns to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada, where Red Bull will race next weekend. It is a circuit at which the team has a strong historical record, having claimed victory there on five previous occasions — a fact that will fuel optimism as they look to build on Miami's momentum.
The chase, however, remains a long one. Mercedes continue to lead the way, and the gap is still significant. Whether the gains made in Miami represent a genuine turning point or merely a temporary improvement in specific conditions will become clearer in Montreal — and in the races that follow.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.
Comments (0)
No comments yet
Be the first to share your thoughts!
Loading posts...