As testing for the 2026 F1 season commences in Bahrain, Laurent Mekies stated he does not consider Red Bull the benchmark, noting that competitors are a “fair bit” ahead of the rest of the field.
With the 2026 F1 season approaching, speculation about the pecking order is at its peak, with teams and drivers pointing to the competition to deflect attention from themselves. After the first week of testing in Bahrain, rivals labeled Red Bull’s power unit as the benchmark. However, during the team principal press conference earlier today, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies dismissed the claims, sharing that he does not believe Red Bull is “the benchmark” ahead of the 2026 F1 season. Although Mekies concedes that Red Bull is among the “group of top guys.”
Laurent Mekies reckons Red Bull F1 is “not the benchmark”
“I think there is a good game in the pit lane to try to move the attention on competition. Our approach is that we try to keep the noise low, to concentrate on ourselves.
“We have a huge amount of work to do, we are unfortunately not the benchmark. We are very high confident that we are probably trailing the group of the top guys right now.“
The 2026 F1 engine is the first product of Red Bull Powertrains and its new partner, Ford. Considering the project’s fledgling status, Mekies suggests rivals might have been surprised by the “consistency” Red Bull has shown in testing so far. While Red Bull can be proud of its accomplishments, the team principal cautions that it will take considerable time before the team can reach its goals.
“But nonetheless, it’s fair to say that yes, probably a fair part of the pitlane was surprised by the fact that we could run with that level of consistency with a completely new project.
“And again, it’s something that our people back in the pitlane should be proud of. The competitiveness fight ahead is going to be massive.
“And it will take us a lot of time to reach the level we want to reach.”
Permane thinks judgment should be postponed until Melbourne
Alan Permane, team principal of Racing Bulls, adds that speculation about the pecking order is fairly standard and something that can be observed during winter testing ahead of every F1 season. Commenting on the power unit, Permane notes that the Red Bull Powertrain unit is working well and that there are no “doubts” about the reliability.
The Racing Bull team principal believes that they should postpone discussions about the pecking order until after the first qualifying session of the 2026 F1 season in Melbourne.
“I think we play this game every winter testing, trying to guess where everyone is. There’s no doubt that the unit is working well. There’s no doubt it’s reliable.
“We’ve done lots of miles this morning. We did 400km just this morning. Fantastic reliability from it.
“I think we need to wait until Saturday afternoon in Melbourne before we make a judgment on who’s where.”
Mekies believes F1 rivals Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari are ahead of Red Bull
When asked who he believed the benchmark to be, Mekies said he viewed Mercedes as the currently “fastest team”, adding that he was surprised his colleagues pipped Red Bull as favourites. In turn, Red Bull guessed that rivals Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari are “a fair bit faster” than Red Bull and everyone else.
“We see Mercedes being the fastest team right now. As Alan [Permane] said, it’s a bit of a guessing game. So, I was questioning the guessing game of my colleagues.
“I’m not going to enter the game myself. But, we think Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren are probably the guys that are, the three of them, a fair bit faster than us right now.
“Telling you by what amount or in which order is probably too difficult, but that would be my guess right now.
Mekies added that his guess was subject to change as teams work to “evolve” and “optimize” their packages ahead of the start of the 2026 F1 season.
“But the guess will change. We will all evolve our car. We’ll all start to optimise what we have, and things will move again.
“But I would say these three guys are, we think, a fair bit ahead of everyone else.”
