Red Bull senior engineer confirms upgrades to battle for the constructors' world championship second place

Red Bull technical director Pierre Waché has confirmed more upgrades, as the team aims for second place in the Constructors’ title. With six races and three sprints left in the season, the Milton Keynes outfit is in a close fight with Mercedes and Ferrari.

After a mid-season slump, Red Bull has regained momentum at Monza, where Max Verstappen's pole-to-flag victory came after a major floor redesign. The revised vertical fences and outer-edge profiles improved the RB21’s grip and stability. Further refinements at Baku and Singapore led to Verstappen finishing P1 and P2, respectively.

Speaking to RacingNews365, Waché said:

“We will have other stuff coming. Not the next Grand Prix, maybe a little bit later. Clearly, the Constructors’ Championship is not finished for us. It’s very important. With the philosophy of this team, with every race we participate in this championship, we never give anything away.”

The exact nature of the upcoming package remains undisclosed, but Red Bull’s focus has been on improving downforce consistency and front-end stability, areas that hurt them earlier in the year.

Max Verstappen's car ahead of the 2023 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix. Source: Getty

The Monza floor gave the team a clear aerodynamic base, and a new front wing introduced in Singapore helped Max Verstappen finish ahead of both McLarens at Marina Bay.

The track has long exposed Red Bull’s weaknesses. Team principal Laurent Mekies admitted that the result “meant a lot,” given the team’s historical struggles on high-downforce circuits. For a car traditionally dominant on low-drag layouts, the Singapore turnaround confirmed that the updates were delivering across all configurations.

Waché explained that the timing of updates reflected how the team operated internally.

“We compromised a little bit at the beginning of the year,” he said. “But with the way we work, every time it’s like that. We’re a little late in development, a little late finalising the next car. It’s the way our system works, and we take the benefit of it this year. We are maybe a little different to others in the way we work, but we have very good capacity internally in terms of manufacturing. It’s what we are good at.”

Red Bull sits fourth in the standings with 290 points, closing in rapidly on Ferrari (298) and Mercedes (325). The battle for second remains wide open heading into the United States Grand Prix at Austin next Sunday.

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How Red Bull’s late-season push fits into its 2026 plans

(L-R) Red Bull Racing Head of Racing Operations, Richard Wolverson, Pierre Wache, and Laurent Mekies, at Hungaroring. Source: Getty

Red Bull’s decision to keep developing its current car this late in the season has raised questions about its 2026 project. The regulation shift next year will introduce lighter chassis designs, new aerodynamic profiles, and the debut of RB Powertrains as the team’s in-house engine supplier.

Unlike McLaren, which has halted MCL39 development to focus on next year’s concept, the Milton Keynes outfit has maintained that its updates will not affect long-term work. Waché addressed this concern and clarified, via the aforementioned source:

“I don’t think so. Just to make clear, what we have now and what we have a little bit later are developed a long time in advance. It’s not like from yesterday.”

With the team’s internal resources divided between its aerodynamics group at Milton Keynes and the power unit operation in Milton Keynes and Sakura, the team’s approach allows both streams to progress in parallel.

Even though Max Verstappen is trailing Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, he is still mathematically in the title hunt, so every update counts.

Edited by Hitesh Nigam