Red Bull points to Miami qualifying

Formula 1 teams talk themselves up all the time. But Red Bull’s read on Miami is pretty specific — and that’s why it matters. The team is pointing to one thing above all else: qualifying pace. After starting 2026 looking oddly lost with the RB22, Red Bull came out of Miami saying the car finally behaved like something closer to a front-runner again. Max Verstappen’s front-row start did not mean the problem was solved. But it did give the team its clearest proof yet that the fixes are doing something real. ### What exactly changed in Miami? The headline number is simple. Verstappen qualified second for the Miami Grand Prix with a 1:27.964, just 0.166 seconds behind pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes. That was Red Bull’s best main-session qualifying result of the season, and a big jump from the earlier rounds where the car was nowhere near the front on pure one-lap pace. (formula1.com) ### Why is qualifying the thing Red Bull cares about? Because qualifying strips away some of the noise. Strategy, tyre degradation, traffic, and weird race incidents can hide what a car really is over a Sunday stint. One clean lap is a more direct test of whether the platform works. Mekies basically said that out loud — Miami mattered because Red Bull went from 1.2 seconds off pole in Japan and 1.0 second off in China to six tenths away in sprint qualifying and under two tenths away in Saturday qualifying. (formula1.com) That is not a tiny gain. ### So what did Red Bull actually fix? The team has not published a neat one-line answer, but the pattern is clear. Mekies said the work happened on both the chassis and power-unit side, and Verstappen said small setup changes before qualifying made the car feel much stronger and left him “a lot more in control” and “not a passenger.” That wording tells you a lot. Early in the year, the RB22 looked nervous and narrow-windowed. (formula1.com) In Miami, Verstappen sounded like he could finally lean on it. ### If the car was better, why didn’t Red Bull fight for the win? Because one-lap pace and race pace are not the same thing. Verstappen spun on Lap 1, got pushed onto an alternate strategy after an early Safety Car stop, and recovered to fifth. Mekies still called the race pace encouraging, but he was pretty blunt about the ceiling — good enough for the P3-to-P5 fight, not enough for P1 or P2. (pitpass.com) So Miami was progress, just not a full return to old Red Bull dominance. ### Was it only Verstappen, or the whole team? That is the catch. The strongest evidence came from Verstappen. Isack Hadjar reached Q3 but was later disqualified for a technical non-conformity, and his weekend pace was not as close to Verstappen as in the opening rounds. That makes Miami slightly harder to read. A true recovery looks more convincing when both cars land in the same zone. (formula1.com) ### Why does Imola matter now? Because Miami might be a track-specific boost unless Red Bull repeats it somewhere else. Mekies is saying the team is heading in the right direction, not that it has fixed everything. Imola becomes the next proper test — a very different circuit, with different demands, and a cleaner chance to see whether the RB22’s better balance can survive beyond one encouraging weekend. (formula1.com) ### What should we take from this? Red Bull finally has evidence, not just hope. Miami showed the RB22 can qualify near the front again, and that matters because it means the team’s development path is probably not broken. But the gap to victory pace is still there. The bottom line is simple — Miami looked like the first real step back, not the finish line. (formula1.com)