BUDAPEST, July 30 -- The math had been working in Red Bull's favor all summer. From a starting deficit of 1.3 seconds per lap in Melbourne, Laurent Mekies watched his engineers claw back ground at Miami, then again in Austria, until the gap entering Budapest before the season's midpoint break had shrunk to two or three tenths. In terms of raw pace, Red Bull had traveled further in one season than most teams manage in two.

Then, in the paddock after Lando Norris claimed his first Formula One victory of 2026 at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Mekies said the quiet part out loud.

"We have brought a huge amount of development to the car between race one and here, in order to try to as soon as possible correct the large deficit we initially had," ...