Laurent Mekies watched his Red Bull team score just four points in Japan on Sunday, with Max Verstappen finishing eighth and Isack Hadjar outside the top 10 in P12. The team have a best finish of sixth so far this season, achieved in Australia – not the return they hoped for from the first three races of the year.
Hadjar called Red Bull the “fourth or fifth” fastest team prior to any track action at Suzuka and the results back that up, with Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari, along with Pierre Gasly in the Alpine finishing ahead of the Bulls.
But with plenty of data to dig into thanks to both cars finishing, Team Principal Mekies was able to take some positives from Japan.
“We learned a lot more about where our car’s current limitations are,” he explained after the race on Sunday. “It was important for us to get involved in those battles and for both Max and Isack to complete the race distance, so we could continue to gather more data.
“Of course, we have a lot of work to do and we now have a few weeks to try and find some fixes for those limitations. At the moment, what is important is to work on the performance gap to the guys ahead of us.
“There is not just one area we can pinpoint as being the cause of our difficulties and we need to work on all areas. It feels bad now, but I have full confidence in the team.”
Red Bull are running their own power unit this season, and there have been some reliability issues with the Red Bull Ford power unit.
Hadjar retired from the season-opening race in Melbourne, while Verstappen failed to finish in China, with both drivers also running into issues across the various practice sessions.
But with Hadjar qualifying third in Australia, there is also latent pace in the car – if the team can harness it. And while Verstappen struggled to overtake Gasly in Japan, he was not the only one who found himself bottled up, with George Russell also at times finding it difficult to pass.
As such, there is a chance that the car has good characteristics – if the team can exploit these.
Formula 1 now has gap between races with the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia Grands Prix no longer taking place in April, giving teams a chance to catch their breath and spend time in the factory looking for answers.
“During the break, we are going to take a deep dive into our data, and take it to our simulator. We won’t have solved everything by the next race, but the team will do the heavy lifting and get to the bottom of our difficulties,” Mekies added.
“I have full confidence that, with everyone giving a massive push in Milton Keynes, we will make the most of the coming weeks to move forward and bring improvements to Miami.”
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