- Red Bull has scored just 12 points across its first two race weekends
- Buemi says a first-year engine manufacturer cannot be expected to match rivals
- Team principal Mekies admits the 2026 package has shown “significant shortcomings” overall
Red Bull simulator driver Sebastien Buemi has warned critics not to rush to judgment on the team’s new power-unit programme, arguing that a first-year engine manufacturer cannot be expected to match established rivals straight away, even after what he admits was “very bad” Chinese Grand Prix.
Speaking to RacingNews365 on March 20 ahead of the Madrid E-Prix, Buemi said Red Bull deserve more time before fair conclusions can be drawn about the Red Bull Powertrains-Ford project. The 2026 season is the team’s first as an in-house engine manufacturer, a shift forced by Honda’s early exit and supported by a development partnership with Ford.
Buemi’s comments land at a difficult moment. Red Bull have collected just 12 points across the opening two race weekends, have suffered engine-related retirements, and seen both Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar struggle with a car that appears fragile and relatively slow compared to the front-runners.
What went wrong in China
Shanghai exposed two separate problems. Verstappen’s race ended when the car was retired due to a coolant fault in the energy recovery system. But even before that failure, the weekend had been a struggle. Sky Sports reported that Verstappen described the car as “incredibly tough to drive” and said “every lap is a fight,” with handling and tyre degradation issues persisting all weekend.
Team principal Laurent Mekies did not shy away from the dire situation. “We had to retire Max because of a coolant fault,” Mekies said. “However, this was not our only issue, as overall, performance-wise, our package showed some significant shortcomings.”
That admission separates the reliability problem from the broader performance deficit. A coolant circuit failure is one thing. But the car’s inability to rotate properly, its front-left tyre graining after only a few laps on the medium compound, and persistent understeer in slow corners are unrelated.
The engine is not the whole problem
GPblog’s technical analysis argues that the majority of Red Bull’s gap to rivals does not come from the power unit but from chassis balance, aerodynamic efficiency, and tyre stress. Verstappen was losing time in long corners and technical sections because of understeer, and the car was overworking the front-left tyre in ways that compounded this.
That distinction is the core of Buemi’s comments. Even if Red Bull’s first-year engine needs development, the team also has a car that is not in the right operating window. Fixing one problem will not automatically solve the other.
Mekies framed the reliability struggles as expected growing pains rather than a sign of terminal decline. He said getting onto the grid in Melbourne with Red Bull’s own power unit was “a major achievement in itself” and that it would have been “naïve” not to expect reliability issues in year one.
Japan as the next checkpoint
Mekies said the team had “learned so much over the past few weeks” and expected to be more competitive at the next round in Japan. “We have a great group of talented people on the campus and I have full confidence that we will get through our current limitations thanks to a massive push from everyone,” he said.
Buemi’s comments make sense: no new engine manufacturer has arrived fully competitive in its first race.
But, crucially, the Japanese Grand Prix will test whether Red Bull’s start looks like almost-inevitable first-year pain, or whether the combination of a new engine and chassis weakness runs deeper and will take much longer to address.
