Red Bull reminds McLaren about Mercedes’ ill-judged comments in late-season updates
Max Verstappen took pole position at the British Grand Prix ahead of the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
The last of the F1’s frontrunners to update its car, Red Bull has scoffed at McLaren’s claims that it could cost it 2026, after all, it was the “same story in 2021”.
Rather than all-out warfare, this year’s development war has been a balancing act as teams weigh up F1 2025 gains, and points in the championship, versus next year’s head start with the all-new technical regulations.
Red Bull has adopted a different programme to McLaren
It’s a conundrum that has seen several teams, including McLaren, halt development on the current car.
Having already won the Constructors’ Championship and sitting 1-2 in the Drivers’ standings, McLaren’s technical department is now focused solely on next season’s car.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella confirmed this to PlanetF1.com and other media in Austin, saying: “When it comes to new upgrades, new parts, then this will not happen for the rest of the season.”
No sooner had the silence set in than Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko revealed Red Bull would be pressing ahead with upgrades.
“We still have something up our sleeves. I don’t know exactly when it will come,” the Red Bull motorsport advisor revealed to OE24 before the team brought four new parts, including a revised floor to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
Although Red Bull struggled in Mexico, as it has done in past years, Verstappe finished on the podium behind Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc. More importantly, he was ahead of Oscar Piastri.
Having sat 40 points down on the then-championship leader prior to Mexico, Verstappen is now 36 points on P1, which has changed hands from Piastri to Norris.
With four race weekends remaining, the Red Bull driver has taken almost 70 points out of the lead in five races, that down from 104 points after Zandvoort to 36 after Mexico City.
Stella stands by McLaren’s decision not to improve the MCL39.
Next season, Formula 1 will introduce new technical regulations, creating smaller, light, more agile cars that incorporate active aerodynamics. It has seen many teams, if not most, focus on 2026.
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“The 2026 project would be heavily compromised,” he told the media in Mexico. “We want to win championships in the future. To win championships in the future you need to have a competitive car. I think we have been very considerate in the timing of switching our full resources to 2026.”
Speaking specifically about Red Bull, he added: “I think it’s much easier to develop when you have some specific problems and I think, for instance, for Red Bull they talked at times of struggling to rebalance with the front wing when they were using big rear wings.
“Perhaps they are happier to give up a little bit of the 2026 because they might have some other issues for 2026 whereby they say let’s focus on 2025.”
His comments had Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko chuckling, after all, who remembers 2021?
Back in 2021, ahead of the introduction of the ground-effect aerodynamic cars, Toto Wolff was skeptical about Red Bull’s late-season updates and believed they’d hurt the Milton Keynes squad.
They didn’t with Red Bull clinching the championship double in the first two years of the current era.
Marko says, ahead of F1 2026’s all-new cars, this will be the same for Red Bull.
“It was the same story in 2021,” he told OE24. “Toto was really worried that we wouldn’t be competitive in 2022.
“It’s part of our philosophy that we,” he continued, “whenever the rules change, are working as long as we can to stay competitive. That was the same for the last three changes when new regulations came.
“So if they don’t have anything else to worry about, then okay,” he continued with a laugh.
“We know what we’re doing.”
And what Red Bull is doing is orchestrating an exact plan, and everyone involved knows what they have to do.
“It needs an exact plan and very disciplined people, which we have. So we don’t think there is a handicap for 2026,” he concluded.
F1 2026, though, isn’t only the first season under the new technical regulations; it is also the first year of the new engine formula with Red Bull PowerTrains designing its first F1 engine in collaboration with Ford.
There are mixed reports about the engine as whispers suggest it is underpowered compared to the Ferrari and Mercedes power unit, but Red Bull is adamant it is progressing well.
New Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said of the challenge: “We don’t underestimate that these guys have been doing it for 90 years or something like that, so it would be silly from our side to think we are going to come here and right from the start be at Ferrari’s level or at Mercedes’ level.
“But it’s being set up the Red Bull way at the maximum possible level. We take it step by step and we will see.
“We are trying to ramp up the power unit and the structures that go around the power unit – the people, the infrastructures – as quickly as possible.”
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