There is something lurking beneath the surface of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull RB22 — and Laurent Mekies has now admitted that the problem is considerably more complicated than a conventional setup headache.
While Verstappen has begun to claw his way back into contention for podiums, Red Bull remains without a victory in 2026.
The Dutchman’s second successive podium at the Spanish Grand Prix offered some encouragement, but it also came against the backdrop of a more troubling technical mystery that Red Bull has yet to solve.
Mekies has deliberately kept the details under wraps. What he has confirmed, however, is that Verstappen’s complaints about the car losing performance as a weekend session progresses are genuine.
“We are not going to explain what it is and how we are going to fix it,” he said last weekend in Madrid when asked about Verstappen’s concerns.
“But Max is right. There is an element of car performance degradation that is happening through a session, through a race.
“He is right in saying it is not a new issue. We are not sleeping on it. We have been trying to tackle that in different ways.
“Obviously, I consider it a complex issue, otherwise, we would have got to the bottom of it.”
A problem that refuses to stay hidden
That admission provides an intriguing explanation for some of the RB22’s erratic behaviour.
Verstappen has repeatedly complained about the car’s narrow operating window and, in particular, the behaviour of its rear axle. The four-time world champion was also left frustrated in Hungary when he felt the performance of his Red Bull deteriorate dramatically during the race.
©Red Bull
Mekies’ comments suggest those struggles may be symptoms of something deeper. Rather than simply failing to extract enough performance from the RB22, Red Bull appears to be confronting a car whose performance can progressively slip away during a session or race.
And the consequences are not merely theoretical.
“It’s serious lap time. There is no doubt that we have everyone trying to improve that for the future,” Mekies added.
That makes the mystery particularly important for a Red Bull team already struggling to extract consistency from a radically different 2026 package.
Making progress – but slowly
There was at least a glimmer of hope in Madrid, with Mekies revealing that the team had made some headway in understanding the problem.
But the Red Bull boss was careful not to suggest that a definitive solution is just around the corner.
“Everyone is very constructive about it, trying to make small steps at a time to be able to get to the bottom of it, finally,” he said.
“We had a couple of positive steps in that regard [in Madrid]. It will never be the full picture, but we certainly have, through pain, made progress in our understanding.
“We don’t have all the solutions yet in the car, but I trust that we are on the right way. It will not be fast. It’s something that probably will take us through next year.”
That timeline could prove significant. Verstappen has already been openly critical of the 2026 regulations, while Red Bull’s failure to win a race this season has left the team playing catch-up rather than fighting for another championship.
Mekies remains unwilling to reveal exactly what is going wrong.
“I’m not really going to give any more details. As I say, it’s some aspect of the car’s performance that sometimes doesn’t stay at the optimal level.”
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Mekies defends Verstappen order: ‘Better to take the pain’For now, that is about as far as Red Bull is prepared to go. The team knows there is a performance deficit hiding somewhere within the RB22, knows it can worsen as the car is pushed over longer periods, and knows that Verstappen has been feeling it from behind the wheel.
The more unsettling revelation is that Red Bull still does not fully understand how to make it disappear.
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