Red Bull Team Principal Laurent Mekies has pinpointed the performance gap to the front-running teams as the most critical area for improvement after a trying Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, where the Milton Keynes squad managed only four championship points.

Max Verstappen crossed the line in eighth position, while rookie Isack Hadjar ended the race in 12th, extending a concerning trend for the defending constructors’ champions. With a best result of sixth place all season (achieved in Australia), Red Bull currently find themselves trailing not only the leading pack but also outfits like Alpine, as Pierre Gasly outperformed both Bulls on race day.

"We learned a lot more about where our car’s current limitations are," Mekies explained after Sunday’s race. "It was important for us to get involved in those battles and for both Max and Isack to complete the race distance, so we could continue to gather more data."

Despite a rough start to the season marked by reliability issues and inconsistent pace, Mekies remains confident in the team’s ability to respond. Both Verstappen and Hadjar suffered retirements earlier in the year—Verstappen in China and Hadjar in Australia—while technical gremlins disrupted multiple practice sessions.

However, flashes of potential remain. Hadjar’s surprise third-place qualifying effort in Melbourne suggested untapped speed in the RB21, and Mekies believes unlocking those characteristics is key. "Of course, we have a lot of work to do, and we now have a few weeks to try and find some fixes for those limitations," he said. "At the moment, what is important is to work on the performance gap to the guys ahead of us."

Unlike previous seasons, Red Bull are now developing and running their own power unit in partnership with Ford—a transition that has brought early challenges. While reliability has been an issue, the team views the extended break before the Miami Grand Prix as a vital opportunity to reassess.

"There is not just one area we can pinpoint as being the cause of our difficulties, and we need to work on all areas," Mekies added. "It feels bad now, but I have full confidence in the team."

With Formula 1 entering a rare gap in the calendar—Bahrain and Saudi Arabia having been moved out of April—Red Bull can conduct a deep technical analysis. The team plans to feed race data into their simulator and initiate design revisions back at their Milton Keynes factory.

"During the break, we are going to take a deep dive into our data and take it to our simulator," Mekies confirmed. "We won’t have solved everything by the next race, but the team will do the heavy lifting and get to the bottom of our difficulties. I have full confidence that, with everyone giving a massive push in Milton Keynes, we will make the most of the coming weeks to move forward and bring improvements to Miami."