Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies confirmed on June 28, 2026, that the team will review its race strategy after potentially missing an opportunity for Max Verstappen to execute an undercut on George Russell during the closing stages of the Austrian Grand Prix.
Verstappen finished the 71-lap race at the Red Bull Ring in second place, 1.6 seconds behind Mercedes driver George Russell.
The four-time Formula 1 drivers' champion started fifth following a crash during qualifying at Turn 9, for which the team took responsibility and apologized.
Despite the missed victory and Verstappen having to defend his position against Kimi Antonelli in the final moments, Mekies expressed satisfaction with the pace of the new RB22 car at the team's home race in Spielberg.
Pace Improvement Encourages Team
"The most satisfying element was the pace," Mekies told Sky Sports F1.
The team principal emphasized that closing a significant performance gap in just a few races is an uncommon achievement for a team during a long racing season.
"For the first time this season, we have the pace to be very, very close to having enough to win, so a big credit to everyone back in Milton Keynes," Mekies said.
Mekies acknowledged that additional development is necessary as rival teams continue to introduce their own technical updates.
"It's not something that happens very often that you can save more than one second of pace delta in a few races, and the season is still very long," Mekies stated.
The principal remained optimistic about the trajectory of the vehicle's development heading into future rounds of the championship.
"We know we need more, because we know competition will also continue to bring updates, but certainly, it's very impressive that we are now within the last tenths needed to be on top of the podium," Mekies noted.
During the race, Verstappen closed within 1.3 seconds of Russell with roughly 20 laps remaining, but Red Bull chose to extend his stint by six laps instead of executing an aggressive pit strategy.
When questioned if an earlier pit stop could have secured the win, Mekies conceded the option required evaluation, despite the risk that Mercedes might have used Antonelli to block the advancement.
"It is something we will review, of course," Mekies replied.
Mekies concluded by assessing the performance of the top drivers on the track and noting that starting further back hindered their final result.
"It's probably fair to say that Kimi was probably the fastest guy out there, and perhaps Max was, in fairness, a tiny bit faster than George, and just behind Kimi," Mekies said.
The team leader viewed the competitive weekend as a positive step forward for the entire organization despite the missed top spot.
"But starting positions do matter, and we paid a little bit [the price of] having started a little bit further away from the top spot, but it's a move in the right direction for the whole team," Mekies said.
