{"id":839822,"date":"2026-08-02T12:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T12:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/839822\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T12:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T12:54:10","slug":"red-bull-admits-it-was-not-satisfied-with-its-performance-at-f1-hungarian-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/839822\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bull admits it was ‘not satisfied’ with its performance at F1 Hungarian GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Bull Formula 1<\/a> Team Principal Laurent Mekies has admitted the team was not satisfied with its performance at the Hungarian Grand Prix<\/a> and has set a clear target for the rest of 2026.<\/p>\n

The results of the Hungarian GP show that Red Bull secured a second and sixth place finish, one of its best results of the season.<\/p>\n

But both drivers were far from happy with the RB22 at the Hungaroring, with Verstappen in particular highly vocal about the car\u2019s performance. <\/p>\n

The four-time world champion\u2019s gripes led to a spin the dying seconds of Q3, and a race where he failed to match the pace of the frontrunners.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile teammate Isack Hadjar badly struggled for pace in the opening stint of the race, and was reduced to a supporting role for Verstappen. <\/p>\n

After the race, Mekies reaffirmed the team\u2019s goals, to win races \u2013 with Red Bull currently on course to score its first winless season since 2015. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t sign for anything else other than winning races,\u201d he said after the race. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have to take the opportunity again to say, \u2018well done\u2019 to our people on chassis side, PU [power unit] side, because turning around\u2026 starting from 1.2 seconds, finishing three tenths, half the season in with this level of competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou [media] have pointed out where we started, and I think we know where we started and why we started there. When we put things in perspective with the late push of last year and with the PU adventures, I have to say, everyone PU side, chassis side, some lap time progressions have been brought through updates.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome other lap time progressions have been brought through a lot of people in the background; our 2,000 people have been working to bring a little bit more to every single area.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of them you never hear about, but it put us back in the positions where we are now fighting every race for the podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t count on me to say that we are satisfied, because we are not. We will not be satisfied until we go back to having a race car that has the pace to win on merit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RedRed Bull has admitted it is yet to fully understand the RB22<\/p>\n

Red Bull still identifying car issues?<\/p>\n

Mekies took the positives away from the weekend, but alluded to the team needing to understand why the RB22 continues to be sensitive to certain conditions and circuits. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say that only Lando was clearly faster than Max, and I think everyone else he could have matched or beaten, so I guess it\u2019s positive because it means we have margin to improve with the current package,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll try to see why we are so much on the edge of car balance, corner balance, car performing, car not performing, because it\u2019s been hard work for the drivers but also the team in these last few races to keep the car in its window.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we never managed to give Max and Isack a car they could push with. For example, if I look back to driver feedback in Spa or in Austria, they would probably have said that the car was pretty much ballpark to how it should feel and to what it allows them to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was never the case this weekend, and certainly worse on Friday and Saturday compared to [Sunday], but still I have to say that it probably was not giving a very good feeling to the drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur car has been very sensitive to a number of small factors since race one, and we have suffered a lot in the first part of the season as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s enough that, if you pick up a bit of damage, let it be on gravel, on the kerbs, you get a different wind direction, and everything is a little bit on the edge in terms of performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only do you probably pay a price for lap time, but it also removes the driver\u2019s confidence. It\u2019s not a new topic, but it\u2019s something where probably we have more potential to extract.<\/p>\n

\u201cNonetheless, because it\u2019s Max, because it\u2019s Isack, they have very often managed to extract the performance anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, on the tracks where we have managed to [give them a good balance], we have seen an improved performance. I think it\u2019s about consistency of the delivery of the performance, and it\u2019s been a topic for us this season, and it\u2019s probably where some of the potential improvement is in the second part of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/a> Why Isack Hadjar finds Red Bull\u2019s struggles \u2018reassuring\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull Formula 1 Team Principal Laurent Mekies has admitted the team was not satisfied with its performance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,38068,15196,85],"class_list":["post-839822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mekies","tag-redbull","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}