Finishing fourth, Max Verstappen managed to maximise the result in a weekend where Red Bull Racing didn’t have the pace to seriously fight with Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren. But there is hope: at the next Grand Prix in Austria, a major update package will be introduced, including slimming down the overweight RB22, Laurent Mekies confirmed.
Isack Hadjar put it aptly after the Austrian Grand Prix, in which – despite being lapped – he took the chequered flag in sixth: the Frenchman drove a race in no man’s land. “Especially if you’re fall back like me, you clear the midfield cars quite easy and then the top cars are nowhere near you,” the youngster responded to a question from GPblog. “So then it’s a boring race. But to be fair, we did better than I expected for a track like Barcelona, with these conditions. I think Red Bull Ring, we were looking for a better weekend there.”

Mekies didn’t want to go as far as Hadjar, but the Red Bull Racing team principal did acknowledge that the Austrians couldn’t measure up to the other three top teams in Barcelona. “We are fighting with the top four. Not every track layout we can fight for a podium. So we could fight for podium, obviously, in Canada, in Monaco,” also answering a question from this website.

“We couldn’t fight for podium here. That’s fair. Nonetheless, I think before the last few laps drama, we could beat one Ferrari and one McLaren today. It was the best we could have done.”

Red Bull had anticipated the difficulties

After two Grand Prix weekends in which Red Bull did show its pace, the team barely played a meaningful role at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. “I think we were expecting a reality check in Barcelona. First track with a long straight, the medium-speed, high-speed corners, it’s probably the first time after China and Japan where we come back to this sort of track. So we are expecting certainly a different performance compared to Monaco, where we could certainly fight for pole position.”

Still, Mekies refused to be overly dramatic. “ I think this weekend confirmed progress because what we are talking about is three or four tenths from pole position, or three or four tenths from what you need to do to fight for the win. And that was certainly a very different picture at the beginning of the year on this sort of track. There is still a gap, no doubt, PU side, chassis side. That’s what we need to fight for next.”

The results of that should be visible in a couple of weeks. Red Bull Racing wants to introduce a substantial update package at its home Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring, Mekies confirmed. The RB22’s excess weight needs to disappear there. “In Austria, hopefully we’ll get lighter there. The plan is to get the car to eat a little bit less there, and to get on a bit of a diet,” the Frenchman said with a smile.