TECH WEEKLY: Why Red Bull's new upgrades failed to perform in Mexico
Mark Hughes and illustrator Giorgio Piola explain the upgrades Red Bull brought to Mexico City and why they fell short of beating McLaren and Lando Norris.
Fighting to keep Max Verstappen in Drivers' Championship contention, Red Bull has continued with its aggressive development of the RB21 long after their rivals devoted themselves fully to their 2026 cars. But how did the new upgrades perform in Mexico City?
The team turned up with a further developed version of the floor introduced at Monza just four races earlier. The floor is not totally new but just adopted from the one introduced at Monza, as explained by trackside engineering chief Paul Monaghan.
“It's a ‘make-from’," he said. "So it's a previous floor that we've managed to recycle because it was sufficiently modular, to get it here.”
Next Up
Related Articles
BettingLatest Spanish GP odds before Qualifying in Madrid/16x9%20single%20image%20-%202026-09-11T125459.911.webp)
AS IT HAPPENED: First practice for the Spanish Grand Prix/GettyImages-2294723140.webp)
What the teams learned about the Madring after day 1 of running/GettyImages-2294215166.webp)
Lindblad highlights positives despite FP2 crash in Spain
‘My team mate has done a better job than me’ – Russell/GettyImages-2294471458.webp)
The key challenges F1 drivers will tackle at the Madring