Laurent Mekis: Being fourth is not interesting to anyone.

      Red Bull Racing has everything it needs to address the issues hindering the team at the start of the season, which has caused it to lag noticeably behind the leaders and currently be only fourth in terms of speed, according to its team principal Laurent Mekies.

      During the preseason tests, it seemed that Red Bull was quite capable of intervening in the battle of the three top teams; however, in Australia, it became clear that at best, it could only catch up with McLaren. In China, the gap only increased, but in Japan, according to Mekies, it returned to the level it was at the first stage of the championship, and the team intends to eliminate it.

      "We left Melbourne thinking that we were losing one second to Mercedes and half a second to Ferrari," Racer quotes the head of Red Bull Racing. "The main difference in Melbourne was that there, as it seemed to us, we could catch up with McLaren. And actually, Max Verstappen managed to recover after starting from 20th position, and he got stuck behind one of the McLaren cars, Lando Norris's car.

      Then, in China, we saw that the gap had noticeably increased, and this made us wonder if everything was alright with the balance and characteristics of the RB22. After that, in Suzuka, our performance on Friday and Saturday was also poor.

      Speaking of the race in Japan, there was certainly nothing to be happy about; however, in terms of the gap from our competitors, the picture was not too different from what it was in Melbourne. That is, we were one second behind the leader, half a second behind the best Ferrari car, but McLaren had already risen to their level. Thus, in terms of pace, we found ourselves in a distant fourth place – that is the reality.

      I believe there is a whole combination of factors affecting the results – therefore, we have certain work to do. But we also have not been able to fully unlock the potential of the equipment we have and provide Max and Isaac Hajar with a car they could attack with.

      I'm not saying it's only about the setup. I just want to say that we have encountered certain problems that compound the lack of efficiency. Right now, we are trying to solve this complex of issues, working to understand all the factors that hinder us, and increase the pace of upgrades, which will allow us to achieve improvements.

      A lot currently leaves much to be desired, but I am absolutely confident that our team is very good at handling such situations... Undoubtedly, we believe that we took a step back in China. And we see this not only in the gap from the best but also note that the midfield teams have caught up with us. Overall, I don't think this is only about the number of corners. I think it also has to do with the fact that we are losing in corners and handling them worse, even though our car, as we assumed, should be more efficient. And this is something we need to work on.

      In Japan, things were a bit better, especially in the race, but even there we were only fourth in terms of pace, and being fourth is not interesting to anyone."