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Mercedes have emerged as the dominant engine manufacturer during the 2026 F1 season, but Red Bull have no doubts that their new power unit is just as good as they identify the chassis as the RB22’s weak point.
With two rounds of the 2026 F1 season now in the books, it’s clear that Red Bull are at a deficit to Mercedes’ benchmark with the W17. George Russell and Kimi Antonelli have both led one-twos for the Silver Arrows so far this year.
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Red Bull were understood to have prioritised power over reliability during development, and this has been evident through Isack Hadjar’s blown engine at the Australian GP and Max Verstappen’s coolant leak in Shanghai.
While the new power unit has come back to bite them, staff at Red Bull’s Milton Keynes headquarters are still confident that they took the right direction during their initial stages of development.
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Red Bull staff are ‘convinced’ their F1 engine is on par with Mercedes’ 2026 power unit
During a recent report on SoyMotor’s official YouTube channel, F1 journalists Antonio Lobato and Jesus Munoz Guerrero were discussing Verstappen’s future in the sport when the latter revealed the current sentiments of Red Bull staff regarding the pace of their RB22.
He said, “I was asking the Red Bull team, and they told me the engine is performing very well, really well.
“They’re convinced it could be more or less on a par with the Mercedes, that it could compete with the Mercedes if it were just down to the engine. But the chassis hasn’t been up to scratch.
“And in fact, there’s a statistic floating around which shows that for the Red Bull-Ford in Australia, on a circuit where the engine counted for a great deal, particularly in the second sector, the two Racing Bulls set the second and third fastest times of the entire weekend in that sector.”
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Liam Lawson’s data from the Chinese Grand Prix confirmed that Racing Bulls currently have an edge over Red Bull when comparing the efficiency of their power unit with the chassis, with the brunt of the Austrian constructor’s woes stemming from an overweight RB22.
Red Bull desperately need to fix their chassis issues to compete with Mercedes in 2026
The most recent report has Red Bull’s RB22 at 14kg overweight, which is quite a stark figure in F1.
It’s usually understood that around 10kg of added weight can skew a car’s performance by around three-tenths of a second per lap. If Red Bull’s engineers are able to find a way to shed the excess weight, then they truly could be on par with the Silver Arrows.
Working their way up to the front of the field may also alleviate some of Verstappen’s frustrations with the current landscape of F1. The Dutchman has been vocal in his criticisms of the new ruleset, and Johnny Herbert thinks it’s because of Red Bull’s poor performance.
While there is some genuine concern from Verstappen on the trajectory of the sport he is a four-time world champion in, his concerns may take a back seat if he is able to find himself on the top step of the podium sometime soon.
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