Laurent Mekies says Red Bull is prepared to \u201cpay the price\u201d for its late-season developments on the RB21, as the 2026 regulations come into effect in just a few weeks.<\/p>\n
While McLaren believes its 2026 preparations would be \u201cheavily compromised\u201d with 2025 development this late in the season, Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has said the cost is one his team is willing to bear.<\/p>\n
Laurent Mekies: Red Bull development approach a \u2018net gain\u2019<\/p>\n
With the revolutionary new regulations just a few weeks from taking effect, consigning the current cars to the metaphorical scrapheap, Red Bull has been continuously rolling out small revisions and tweaks to its RB21, which has corresponded with an ever-strengthening championship challenge for Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n
McLaren, whose MCL39 dominated the first half of the season, has seen its performance relative to Red Bull ebb somewhat, meaning Verstappen has slashed his deficit in the Drivers\u2019 Championship from over 100 points down to just 36 points with four race weekends remaining.<\/p>\n
Further small updates could well be on the way, with chief engineer Paul Monaghan revealing that development may not yet be fully switched off<\/a>, despite the team\u2019s 2026 challenger being just a few weeks away.<\/p>\n With McLaren having switched off development in order to concentrate on the low-hanging fruit of 2026, Red Bull\u2019s continued push may have some negative effect on the immediate competitiveness of the RB22 at the start of the new rules cycle, but Mekies has said this is acceptable.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are doing it this way because we think, for us, let alone the other guys, it\u2019s a net gain,\u201d he told the media, including PlanetF1.com, after the Mexico City Grand Prix.<\/p>\n \u201cWe validate our approaches.<\/p>\n \u201cFor 2026, if we thought it would compromise it, we would not be doing it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know there is a price to pay, we think it\u2019s reasonable, and we think it\u2019s worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n Short of winning the title, there remains precious little reward for continuing with development of the 2025 cars with so few races left at which to reap any benefit, but Mekies has previously said there is a bigger picture at play that means it makes sense for Red Bull to keep up its push.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, it comes at a cost, undoubtedly, to the \u201926 project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we feel it\u2019s the right trade-off for us, without judging what the other guys are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n The trade-off, in his eyes, is that Red Bull<\/a> is gaining validation of its understanding of the correlation between its simulated data from CFD and the wind tunnel with the real world; this has been a weak area for the Milton Keynes-based squad in recent years.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom a Red Bull perspective, and without looking at the other guys around, I think it was, and is, very important that we get to understand if the project has more performance,\u201d Mekies said in Singapore.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important that we get to the bottom of it, because we will elaborate on next year\u2019s project, even if the regulations are completely different, with the same tools, with the same methodology.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very important that we validate, with this year\u2019s car, that our way of looking at the data is correct, our way of developing the car is correct, that produces that level of performance \u2013 that will give us confidence in the winter for next year\u2019s car.\u201d<\/p>\n More on Max Verstappen and the F1 2025 title from PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc49 How Max Verstappen can beat Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to the F1 title<\/a><\/p>\n \ud83d\udc49 Red Bull breakthrough secrets uncovered as Verstappen promised \u2018something up our sleeve\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n What is McLaren\u2019s position on late development?<\/p>\n Red Bull\u2019s ongoing push may yet reward the team with a Drivers\u2019 Championship title, if Verstappen does prove able to overcome the points tallies of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, but McLaren has made its position clear that, despite Verstappen\u2019s relentless gains, there will be no further updates to the MCL39 in a bid to stave him off.<\/p>\n Development this late in the game, team boss Andrea Stella claims, will prove detrimental to a team in the 2026 rules changeover.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 2026 project would be heavily compromised,\u201d he said in Mexico.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to win championships in the future. To win a championship in the future, you need to have a competitive car.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we have been very considerate in the timing of switching our full resources to 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Added to that, Stella said, McLaren had little room for improvement in a formula that has reached aerodynamic maturity.<\/p>\n \u201cOur car, from an aerodynamic point of view, was already quite mature,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cTo add one point of aerodynamic efficiency, like we have added more than one point when we upgraded our car around Austria, Canada and so on, it takes weeks for us to add one point of aerodynamic efficiency because we were at a plateau in our aerodynamic development.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the 2026 car, every week, we add a lot of downforce. So that\u2019s where, with the best information you have available, you have to make a call.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also don\u2019t have to forget that, by being the champions, we are the most restricted by the regulations in terms of the wind tunnel allowance and the CFD allowance. So it\u2019s not like we have an unlimited amount of resources that we can use.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we need to be on the rate in the way we allocate resources this year to next year, because it comes from the same point when it comes to CFD and aerodynamic wind tunnel testing.<\/p>\n \u201cLike I said before, because we were so much in the diminishing returns, we needed to be realistic and shift our attention to 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cAlso, I think that, when we look at Red Bull and when we consider some of the complaints they had at the start of the season, perhaps they had more margin to develop efficiently focusing on 2025 and 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, \u2018Let\u2019s focus on \u201925.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n