Mekies explains how Verstappen outperformed Red Bull’s own simulations in Brazil

The Sao Paulo Grand Prix was a superb race for Red Bull Racing as Max Verstappen put in an extraordinary charge from 21st on the grid to second, and Isack Hadjar backed him up with a solid third place.

What made Verstappen’s progress through the field so impressive was that the man himself had cautioned that with the 2026 cars, passing would not be as easy as he had previously demonstrated at Interlagos.

And yet he somehow found the performance that he needed, even if at times he made it clear that he wasn’t happy with the balance of the RB22.

Team Principal Laurent Mekies confirmed that the Dutchman had outperformed Red Bull’s pre-race expectations.

“As always, I think no sim in the world would predict that you go from P21 to P2, or that you get 14 places in five laps,” he said. “There is no sim being able to do that. So he's beating the sim on a regular basis!”

The obvious disappointment was that Verstappen had to start from the back of the grid, something that was not anticipated going into the weekend.

“Of course it's frustrating, because the pace seemed good on Friday and also on Saturday morning, and in some respects in Q1 when we let him qualify,” said Mekies.

“But it's part of the game. It's easy to forget, it's the first year with the power unit, and the guys have been doing an extraordinary job. And we take the first penalty with Max this weekend, and that's what it is. It was not planned. We had a small issue on Friday that forced us to do so.”

Intriguingly Mekies conceded that it was not a given that Verstappen could have beaten winner Lando Norris, even if he’d started at the sharp end.

“Well done to Lando and to McLaren,” said the Frenchman. “I think they were generally a bit faster than us in the race. I also think that even if you start P2, say, I think on pace Lando was anyway a bit a bit faster than us.

“So of course it's a different story if you start P2, because you have all the first opening laps risk taking, on which Max is unbelievable. But I think they were a bit faster than us.”

Mekies couldn’t say definitively why that was: “Is it degradation? Is it pure pace? Obviously, they brought another fair bit of upgrade this weekend again. Or is it something else?

“Because you may have heard Max being fairly vocal with the car balance once we had switched to dry tyres, and from that point onward, he has been very, very unhappy with car balance, including when we came back to the inters at the very end.

“So we need to analyse what happened there, how much of that is time loss, and whether or not that would have been enough to fight with McLaren.”

On his charge through the field, Verstappen was helped by Hadjar letting him through. Mekies admits that there was an option to swap the places back later on, but it didn’t happen.

“I think we would have done it if the cars had stayed close together,” he noted. “We would have done it, because Isack had a very strong pace and he stayed with Max, as you have seen after the swap.

“But then, as the race panned out and the rain came again, the cars were very, very distant, and it would not have made sense. Plus, increased rain intensity at the end, it would not have made any sense. But I have to say, Max and Isack worked very, very strongly together to give us that result.”

Hadjar may have been disappointed not to have been able to finish ahead of his team mate, but nevertheless Interlagos was another strong performance, making good progress after struggling to find the right setup earlier in the weekend.

“I think ultimately, if you ask me right now, I think it's the best race he has done with us in terms of pure pace, and that's what we look at,” said Mekies. “Pure pace on the dries, on the inters, super difficult conditions, in how clever he has been racing. He has done a lot of very strong racing this year, but I think he has raised the bar another time.

“So that's what we want to keep seeing. That's what we said we were most impressed by when we took the decisions to confirm him for '27, the way he keeps raising the bar, and we were simply hoping to provide him with the environment for him to keep doing that. I think he has done that today in terms of the race, and in the context where he has been building through the weekend.”

A win for McLaren coming just a week after an event that saw Ferrari on pole and in contention for victory was another sign of just how competitive F1 currently is at the front of the grid, with the top four teams evenly matched.

“The convergence is probably happening earlier than what we all thought,” said Mekies. “I'm guessing somehow it's perhaps an indication of fairly restrictive regulations. That being said, you see cars with visibly different concepts, and you see four top teams fighting, which is probably a great point to be for the sport.

“So, let's see how it will pan out in the second year. But it's fair to say that having to be already in the second part of '26 in the situation where you turn up at the race weekend, and you don't know which one of the four top teams is going to win the race, I think it's great for the sport.

“And yes, we get now top five in Qualifying separated by two-tenths, and it's a strong combination of development race and absolute perfect execution if you want to win on Sunday.”