Red Bull presents itself in Japan with an important package of updates. The Milton Keynes team has redesigned the RB22 bodywork, restoring the pinched-side configuration that was so fashionable during the ground effect era. Verstappen is the only driver to have the updates, despite which, however, he continues to complain about car balance problems, which are added to those of the power unit and overweight.
Red Bull updates
The team led by Laurent Mekies goes against the grain, bringing an evolutionary package at an unusual time of the season. Red Bull’s updates arrive at the last race before the long April break, moreover in a trip very far from the factory and for this reason even more impactful on the budget cap. In this perspective, the team could have waited for the next Miami appointment and worked in the wind tunnel in the meantime, but debuting the updates at Suzuka has the advantage of being able to collect valuable data to be reprocessed during the break. Furthermore, Max Verstappen is the only team driver to have the updates, which is why the team saved on the cost cap by avoiding making a second package for Hadjar, in an economically very expensive race.
The developments concern the RB22 bodywork, an area already subject to evolution during testing in Bahrain. Red Bull has redesigned the side radiator intakes, but above all has extended the side skirt to the rear end, work that also required a reorganization of some internal components. The pinched-side configuration thus returns, conveying flows from the upper part to the gearbox area, from where they then exit at the diffuser shoulders. The floor is the same one that raced in Shanghai, with the exception of modifications to the connection with the lower part of the bodywork. At Suzuka, moreover, Red Bull races with new rear brake cooling ducts, more suitable for a track that is not severe for the braking system, where it is difficult to keep the rear axle in temperature.
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The window is narrow
Unfortunately for Red Bull, the evolutionary package from Japan is not enough to cure the ills of the RB22, which in China Max Verstappen had described as undrivable. At Suzuka the Dutch champion describes a car that swings from one extreme to the other, oscillating between understeer and excessively unstable behavior, a symptom of an operating window that is too narrow. To all this are added the overweight problems and the lack of horsepower from the best power units in the batch, which in any case are not enough to hide the aerodynamic shortcomings. The impression is that Red Bull is paying the price for the resources sacrificed to the 2026 project during last season to gain ground on McLaren, as well as a technical department orphaned of the protagonists of the ground effect era, above all Adrian Newey and Rob Marshall. To turn things around, more updates will be needed, starting with those that will most likely arrive in Miami.
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