“It’s been hard work” - Red Bull’s F1 car admission after Max Verstappen complaints

Laurent Mekies admits “it’s been hard work” for Red Bull and its drivers to “keep the car in its window” in recent rounds, following Max Verstappen's complaints in Hungary.

Red Bull came away from the Hungaroring with a second-place finish courtesy of Max Verstappen.

However, it came amid a difficult weekend for the team, with Verstappen complaining on Saturday that his “car just kept getting worse and worse, lap after lap” during qualifying.

Mekies says the team has been struggling to find a consistent set-up with the car from track to track, and doesn’t believe Red Bull actually delivered Verstappen something he could push with in Hungary despite his podium.

“I think we never managed to give Max and Isaac [Hadjar] a car that they could push with,” he began.

“So, for example, if I look back to drivers’ feedback in Spa or in Austria, they would probably said that the car was pretty much ballpark to how it should feel and to what it allows them to do.

“That was never the case this weekend.

“Certainly [it was] worse on Friday and Saturday compared to today, but still today, I have to say that it probably was still not giving a very good feeling to the drivers.

“Nonetheless, in the end of the day, it's probably tough for everyone out there. And I think it's fair to say that only Lando [Norris] was clearly faster than Max today, and I think everyone else he could have matched or beaten.

“I guess it's positive because it means we have margin to improve with the current package, and we will try to see why we are so much on the edge of car balance, corner-out balance, car performing, car not performing because it's been hard work for certainly the drivers, but also the team in these last few races to keep the car in its window.”

Mekies added that finding a consistent package from week to week will be where the focus lies for Red Bull come the second half of the season.

“At first, I'm not really convinced that it is linked to a package or something else,” he continued.

“I think we've been struggling to give the drivers a car that they could have a good balance with.

“Nonetheless, because it's Max, because it's Isaac, they are very often still able to extract the performance anyway, but on the tracks where we have managed to do that, we have seen an improved performance.

“So, I think it's about consistency of the delivery of the performance.

“And it's been a topic for us this season. And it's probably where some of the potential improvement is in the second part of the year.”