Red Bull sit P4 in the 2026 constructors' championship after Miami, 30 points on the board and zero wins — a sentence that would have read like satire eighteen months ago and now reads like the defining storyline of the season. The reigning era's benchmark team is fourth, and the gap between what this organization used to be and what it is right now is the lens through which everything else gets framed.
Miami was, by the standards of this campaign, a step forward. Max Verstappen brought the car home P5 on the back of a heavily revised package — new sidepods, a new floor, a steering fix — that finally translated from the simulation to the stopwatch. Verstappen called it light at the end of the tunnel. The excess weight has been halved from 12kg to 6kg over the floor, and Austria is the target for hitting the minimum. That's the bull case.
The bear case wears the No. 6 car. Isack Hadjar retired from Miami at P22 and sits on four points through four rounds, and YF1's coverage has been unsparing about the climb: the second Red Bull seat has been a graveyard, and the sophomore Frenchman is following a script Gasly, Albon and Lawson all read before him. Add Lambiase's departure to McLaren, and the off-track turbulence isn't slowing either.
What to watch: Canada as a holding pattern, then Austria as the real referendum on whether this car finally hits weight and starts fighting forward.