Could the Miami Grand Prix be the turning point for Red Bull?

The scale of the decline is difficult to ignore. Red Bull And its two drivers find themselves battling in a field that the team was dominating just last year. The Austrian team is currently sixth in the Constructors' Championship, tied on points with Alpine (16), while Max Verstappen Isack Hadjar and Isack are currently 9th and 12th respectively in the Drivers' Championship. Being in this position is not a problem in itself — theAlpine A526 has adapted well to the new regulations after a sacrificed 2025 season — but for a team that nearly secured a fifth consecutive Drivers' title in 2025, the benchmark is harsh. For example, Max Verstappen finished eighth at Suzuka after a surprise elimination in Q2, conceding more than a second to Kimi Antonelli in qualifying.

An acknowledged delay, a trajectory to be defined

It would be inaccurate, however, to reduce 2026 to a Verstappen in crisis. The four-time world champion simply finds himself at the wheel of a car incapable of allowing him to express his full potential. Isack Hadjar himself is struggling to find satisfaction with his machine, and the internal hierarchy between the two drivers currently offers no diagnostic value regarding the team's true competitiveness. What tells us more is the trajectory of the deficit. In the first race of the season, Isack Hadjar was only 0,785 seconds off pole position in Australia. The gap increased to 0,938 seconds in China, then to 1,2 seconds in Japan. The RB22 isn't stagnating—it's falling behind the competition with each race.

The French pilot, interviewed by RACERHe is not surprised, however. "Given how everyone pushed to fight for the title very late in last season, it's no surprise that it slightly delayed development for the 2026 regulations."he explained. Red Bull did indeed stage a spectacular comeback in the second half of 2025—ten consecutive podium finishes for Verstappen, including six wins—mobilizing resources at the expense of preparing for the new regulations. The delay is structural, but also caused by regulations to which the Austrians must adapt, while simultaneously developing a new engine and managing an internal reorganization that has been ongoing since last summer.

Miami as the first indicator

The spring break, due to the absence of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, gave Red Bull several extra weeks of development, a welcome opportunity in this context. The team conducted a filming day at Silverstone with a modified RB22—featuring new, more angular sidepods and new front and rear wings, among other changes. Miami is expected to mark the beginning of a gradual weight reduction.

Director Laurent Mekies has no doubt about the capabilities of his team and drivers in a interview given to AUTOhebdo : “We have no doubt that the moment we manage to give him a more competitive car that allows him to push to the limit, Max will be at the top immediately. […] Max is not outside the project. He is inside, with us, helping us solve problems and find the solutions we need. It’s the best sensor we have on the car, and we are using it to its fullest potential.”

"I don't think it's far."

Isack Hadjar, for his part, approaches this new chapter with an enthusiasm that his first season in F1 It didn't allow him to test himself. During his rookie season in 2025 with Racing Bulls, he joined a team at the end of its development cycle, without any real possibility of influencing the car's technical direction. The situation is now radically different. "You bring new parts to the car, you guide the engineers in the right direction. It's a much more exciting challenge than simply getting the most out of a car that doesn't change.", he told RACERRegarding the medium-term outlook, he remains on the offensive: "Our rise to power can be the fastest of any team. I don't think that's far off—I think it's realistic, and that's what we're going to try to achieve."

Miami will provide the first reliable data on the real-world impact of the upgrades made to the RB22. If the progress is there, the Canadian Grand Prix, from May 22nd to 24th at the Gilles-Villeneuve circuit, will be a second immediate test—on a very different track, where engine power is crucial. If it isn't, the question of Verstappen's future with the team, already reignited by the announced departure of his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, will be raised again. McLaren In 2028, the focus is likely to shift even further in the paddock than the results themselves. More broadly, if Red Bull's progress coincides with even greater improvements from the competition, the 2026 season could quickly resemble a patient transition period while awaiting the next few months of development.

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