Laurent Mekies has admitted Red Bull is currently paying the price for its decision to develop its 2025 car late into the season last year.
The Milton Keynes-based squad pushed resources into the RB21 across the final stretch of the campaign as it attempted to topple McLaren’s lead in the drivers’ standings.
Max Verstappen ended the year just two points down on Norris as he narrowly missed out on a fifth title.
Red Bull has endured a challenging start to the new campaign and has been unable to compete anywhere near the front of the field across the opening three rounds.
The decision to continue investing in 2025 was made by Mekies soon after he took over the team principal role, a call that he said was “easy”.
He added: “Nobody wanted to give up.”
Speaking on the Beyond The Grid podcast, Mekies has asserted that last year’s performance swing from its mid-season struggles gives him confidence it can do something similar in 2026.
“We thought, and we still think, it was the right thing to do,” he said.
“We felt that turning the page to 2026 would have been a little bit of an easy escape and a wishful thinking that ‘next year will be better’, even though we didn’t fully understand what were the limitations of 2025.
“We didn’t think it was the right way. Now, of course, the time and energy we invested for the late push last year, does it have an impact on where you start 2026? Of course it does.
“Of course, we pay a bit of the price today. Do we use it as an excuse? No.
“We are not happy with the starting point, but we think we will get through these difficulties.
“We will, as we did last year, get the full understanding of the limitations.
“This team has been very, very good in turning things around, and we have another chance to do it this year.”