Have we underestimated Red Bull’s achievements?

Full disclosure at the start of this feature: I might need to accept that the “we” in the headline could be replaced with “I” but I’m taking you all with me when exploring just where Red Bull stands right now.

And to do that, we’re going to rewind the clock by 12 months to see the bigger picture.

Max Verstappen entered the 2025 summer break after qualifying eighth and finishing ninth in the Hungarian Grand Prix, crossing the line over a minute behind the two McLarens. There were radio outbursts and a clear sense of frustration as he dropped 97 points behind Oscar Piastri in the drivers’ championship fight – a gap that would only grow to 104 after the next round at Zandvoort.

Given it had only been a matter of weeks since Laurent Mekies took over as team principal from Christian Horner, it felt like a precarious time for the team. And yet it gave way to one of the most remarkable fightbacks Formula 1 has seen.

“The year has been a rollercoaster,” Mekies tells RACER. “I'm not going to lie, but it's been above all an incredible privilege to be part of the team.

"Joining last year, if I remember the first few weeks, it feels a bit unreal right now, but trying to get to know our incredible people as quickly as we could – incredible people on the chassis side, incredible people on the PU side – and first there was this massive push to turn things around after a difficult start of the 25 season.

“And I recall very well, Pierre [Wache, technical director] and the team not wanting to give up, not accepting the lack of performance of last year’s car. They would have had all the reason in the world to turn the page, with the '26 regulations coming, the new engine coming, a new boss now – you would have had all the reason in the world to say, ‘You know what, this car is not working. We'll sort it out next year.'

“But nobody wanted to do that. And slowly but surely, they found a new sweet spot for the car, new developments for the car, new avenues. And together with some Max magic, it gave us the comeback.”

Having committed so much effort and resource to the title fight in 2025 – perhaps with the backdrop of an appreciation that it might be the last chance to challenge for some time – the short off-season meant there wasn’t long for Mekies to be proud of the turnaround.

Focus for all teams had to rapidly switch to the 2026 regulations, with a shakedown of the new cars and power units in late January. And for Red Bull, that meant the track debut of the first creation from Red Bull Powertrains [RBPT].

“We didn't have the time to realize that it was actually over in Abu Dhabi, [because] we had a big countdown in front of us," Mekies says. “In fairness to our people, that countdown had started, like, four years prior. And that countdown was the most crazy project one can have been involved in, which is to try and do your own power unit.

“It's the sort of project that no board in the world, no shareholders in the world would take on and would accept, would think, ‘Oh, you know what, that's a good idea – let's go and do our own Formula 1 power unit and go and fight against people that have been doing it for 90 years.’ I think nobody will do that.

"It's very much the Red Bull way. We do what we think is impossible to be done. And that's what at the time the shareholders and the management have decided. And certainly an incredible group of people have been put together, led by Ben [Hodgkinson, technical director of RBPT]. And these guys have been working in the shadows for these (past) four years.

“At some stage, you see the countdown coming closer to the end. And it's fair to say that, in the winter, we had that dark cloud over our heads. Because if you get the power unit project wrong, you are on for one, two or three seasons with no competitiveness.

"We have seen it also in the previous regulation cycle in 2014, the guys who got it wrong – let alone the fact that they may have been new or not – they got out of ultimate competitiveness for many, many seasons. And fast forward to January, after many days and nights of work from everybody on the campus and at weekends, the car goes out with Isack [Hadjar] in the Barcelona pre-season testing on day one, and he does 100 laps.

Mekies takes pride in how Red Bull has steadied itself after a rollercoaster 12 months. Mark Thompson/Getty Images

“We just looked at each other and it felt so normal. Already seeing the Red Bull Ford Powertrain people with the chassis people working together with the same shirt was an incredible feeling. And it was very, very clear very early on that we felt we are in the fight. It felt normal so quickly.

“Don't get me wrong, it was feeling normal with a huge amount of things not working as you wish they would, and with a huge amount of things where we are not at the required level, but it felt like close enough to fight.”

After an encouraging pre-season, Mekies says the gap to Mercedes at the first round of the season in Australia was still a shock, but he believes Red Bull has managed to make up close to a second on the benchmark team and car so far during this year.

“You get to Melbourne and you get these massive positives," he says. "The dark cloud is not there anymore.

"Actually, we are going to fight this season. One way or another, we are going to fight.’ But then the hard reality is that you are 1.2 seconds off the pace. Which in fairness is probably quite logical if you think how late we pushed last year. And in some respects, you also see that with our friends at McLaren this year, and we probably pushed even harder and later than they did last year.

“So if you combine that, [with building] the power unit here, fine, we were 1.2 seconds away – part of it from chassis side, part of it from PU side – but it felt we could have a fight.

“As much as the public and perhaps the wider audience was surprised that we said, ‘Oh, guys, we will be the fourth team, and we take it as a positive right now,’ then of course when you are at the race weekend and you see the reality of seeing three other teams in front of you, it's not a very pleasant feeling.

“But once again, Oracle Red Bull Racing have done what they are incredible at doing – development pace. And we are now just half a season on, and the best part of this 1.2 seconds has gone. We are probably left with the last 0.3s compared to the ultimate pace.

“We very well know the last 0.3s are the most difficult ones, and only time will tell if we manage to get those last three. But I have to pay credit to Pierre's teams, to Ben's teams on what has been achieved in this few months, four months, five months, in getting us back into normality of fighting for the win one day or fighting for the podium at the next race.”

Following F1, we’ve become so accustomed to Red Bull and Max Verstappen being a race-winning and championship-contending team in recent seasons, that so quickly being close to that position does not stand out as anything particularly impressive. And yet, to be doing so with a power unit delivered by Red Bull itself, from a company established solely for the purpose of these regulations after Honda’s initial withdrawal, goes far beyond what looked realistic in the face of the established programs at Mercedes and Ferrari.

“It did exceed expectations for me and I think for many people,” says Mekies. “If I have to tell you our power unit people, in the most difficult moment of the last 12 months – I can only judge of the last 12 months – there were times where there were some fairly complex and serious issues to solve in order to be on the grid, and to be on the grid at the right level.

“But even in the most difficult moments, they always felt they had the right means to get to the right place. And so, yes, it was a surprise. I think, yes, they exceeded expectations, no doubt. But again, I have to give credit to Ben and his team for being strong in the good days and more importantly, in the bad days.”

From this stage of 2025 to the end of the season, the scale of Red Bull’s improvement was immense. Despite big-name departures and a new power unit project, the first half of this year surely matches it. The foundations are in place for future wins and titles, and the realistic timeline is far shorter than it might have been.

“I don't think we go into next year with any disadvantage compared to Mercedes, McLaren or Ferrari,” Mekies adds. “It doesn't mean that it will be us or them or whatever. It means that you will have four top teams that will have fairly equal chance to develop their car to challenge for the title next year.”