When the chequered flag waved at Sepang, Max Verstappen delivered Red Bull's first victory as a works power unit manufacturer in the 2026 Formula 1 era. This milestone triumph marks a massive reward for the Milton-Keynes squad as they embarked on F1's latest technical chapter with their own power unit program alongside Ford. While the RB22 has not always proven to be the most compliant machine beneath the 29-year-old Dutchman or his team-mate Isack Hadjar, securing that maiden victory serves as a significant vindication for the entire organization.
Team representative Laurent Mekies believes the result confirms a clear positive trend that the team has enjoyed since the summer break, extracting incremental performance from their overall package race by race. Speaking to media including Motorsport Week, Mekies admitted that the pecking order in Malaysia came as somewhat of a surprise, though it firmly underlined the upward trajectory the team demonstrated previously at venues like Monza, Madrid, and Baku.
However, the French engineer remained pragmatic regarding external factors that may have influenced the competitive order in Southeast Asia. He noted that extreme track temperatures, high surface roughness, and the specific layout of the Sepang circuit likely forced many competing cars out of their ideal operating windows, inadvertently playing into the hands of Red Bull's inherent car characteristics.
Looking ahead at the remainder of the 2026 F1 season, Red Bull is keeping its expectations firmly grounded rather than expecting an immediate sweep of victories. Mekies maintains the strong stance that Mercedes remains the definitive benchmark with its formidable power unit and chassis combination, making a consistent challenge for race wins against the Silver Arrows a stretch for the time being.
"Does it change anything in the way we approach the next races? Not really," Mekies told media including Motorsport Week. "We will try to adapt as best as we can next, and we’ll see. We still think that Singapore will hopefully suit us in terms of slow-speed corner performance. What the competition will do is very, very difficult to understand. I think we will be in the fight for the podium for the coming races, because fundamentally we have been in the fight for the podium for a number of races now: six, seven, eight. So, I think we’ll be in that fight. Will we be in the fight for the win? I think Mercedes has always been in the fight for the win. We have seen that it’s been very difficult to be consistently on par with Mercedes for everyone at all the races."
Baca Juga
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