For the first time this season, Red Bull arrived at a race weekend with a car capable of better results than either of its drivers ultimately delivered. The RB22 had been midfield fodder in China and Japan, the place where Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar both ran for most of those weekends. In Miami, that picture was unrecognisable.
A heavy upgrade package — the most aggressive Red Bull has signed off in 2026 — transformed the car. The team's deficit to the front halved between the early flyaways and Saturday's sprint qualifying. By the time Sunday qualifying arrived, Verstappen was on the front row, less than two-tenths off pole.
Verstappen's own assessment was that anyone projecting that result after Suzuka would have been laughed out of the paddock. He had spent the Japanese weekend openly describing the RB22 as unpredictable, slow, and difficult to drive. Hadjar, alongside him, had said much the same. Two weeks of upgrades later the pair were inside the top 10 in qualifying and Verstappen was challenging Mercedes for outright pace in the sprint.
The shame for Red Bull is that the race never gave the upgraded car a fair hearing.
Verstappen looped the RB22 through 360 degrees at turn two while battling Charles Leclerc in the opening laps, dropping him into the pack and forcing him into a recovery drive that risked further trouble through some aggressive overtaking moves. The team gambled on a very early safety-car pit stop, but that committed Verstappen to 51 laps on hard tyres he liked far less than the mediums.
The podium was never on after that. Fifth was a salvage job. He was also fortunate that Leclerc's late-race penalty kept him clear of sixth, given Verstappen carried his own five-second penalty for crossing the white line on pit exit.
Hadjar's race told the harder version of the same story. He was disqualified from qualifying for a Red Bull floor infringement that was effectively a setup-installation issue, then ended his pit-lane recovery just four and a half laps in with a careless wall strike. The second Red Bull, on a weekend the car had finally come alive, took itself out of the conversation.
That's the awkward edge to Miami. The pace was real. The execution was not. Verstappen, to his credit, has not been shy about either point. He remains one of the most vocal critics of the 2026 regulations, but he conceded openly through the Miami weekend that he was happier in the cockpit than he had been at any race so far this season.
The pivotal question now is whether the upgrade is genuinely a step forward, or whether Miami's stop-start layout flattered an RB22 that has struggled at higher-energy circuits. Canada is a useful first answer. Monza, Las Vegas, and the Red Bull Ring later in the season will be harder ones.
A Miami weekend that ended on the wrong side of two penalties and a spin still pointed to a Red Bull that, with cleaner Sundays, can race the front again.
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*Originally published on [News Formula 1](https://newsformula.one/article/red-bull-rb22-miami-upgrade-verstappen-front-row-deficit-halved-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
