From Melbourne to Imola: The First Cracks in the Red Bull Empire

I still remember how Max Verstappen stepped out of the car in Melbourne, his smile still there but his eyes looking far away. That’s a signal data can never capture. I’ve followed F1 for 41 years, and I know: when a three-time champion starts looking in the rearview mirror more than ahead, something is shifting.

Context The 2026 season started with Red Bull as the favorite. But after three races, the standings tell a different story: Verstappen leads Norris by only 14 points, and the team has lost 12 points due to strategic errors. In Melbourne, they pitted late under Safety Car, hoping for track position, only to lose the podium. In Imola, they chose soft compound mid-race when track temperature hit 48°C, causing excessive degradation. Tracking data shows degradation after 10 laps was 0.3 seconds higher than the model.

Don’t rush to call these isolated mistakes. I look at the timeline: every collapse has precursors; few are willing to see them in time.

Core Let me take you into telemetry. In Melbourne, Verstappen’s speed through Turn 11 dropped 4 km/h from last year. Not driver error – the car lost entry grip. The RB21’s rear suspension was stiffened to optimize high-speed corners, but at Melbourne – a track demanding mechanical grip – it became a liability. This is a trade-off: you sacrifice traction for top speed. But do that three races in a row, and you lose the driver’s confidence.

Norris, by contrast, drives the McLaren MCL39 with rare comfort. My GPS data shows he can enter corners 0.1 seconds earlier than Verstappen while maintaining similar exit speed. That means McLaren has more stable downforce, not “bouncing” during direction changes. That advantage doesn’t come from a single upgrade, but from a consistent design philosophy over two seasons.

What about Red Bull? They are chasing incremental patches. CFD data shows they tested 14 different wing concepts in six months, none truly superior. Every change requires recalibrating the entire suspension – three weeks wasted finding a stable setup. Technical instability is the first sign of a team losing its development compass.

Contrarian Sports journalism often says Red Bull is strong because of the biggest budget and Newey. Wrong. Newey left at the end of 2026, and the new aero department is in personnel crisis: three chief engineers left in 18 months. What tracking data doesn’t tell you, but radio can, is the hesitation in the race engineer’s voice. I heard it in Imola: “Box, box… no, stay out.” That hesitation, in a team famous for machine-like decisions, is a sign of a fractured command chain.

Data only tells part of the story; the rest is in knowing how to listen. I listen to Horner’s silence on the radio in the final laps. He says nothing – instead of motivating, he lets the engineers fend for themselves. That’s when the leader withdraws. And a team, like a football club, cannot stand firm without a helmsman.

Takeaway By the end of May, we have Monaco. If Red Bull continues making strategy errors in slow corners, they will lose not only the championship but their credibility. The question isn’t whether McLaren can win – but whether the Red Bull empire has the courage to tear itself down and rebuild, before everything collapses entirely.