Ralf Schumacher: “Red Bull is a disaster. Mekies is not a team principal and Waché doesn’t put the driver and technology in harmony”

Red Bull in the abyss Over the last two years, Red Bull has faced periods of crisis at a technical and managerial level. The Milton Keynes team was very good at isolating the work on the track from external turbulence, managing to win the 2024 World Championship and compete for the 2025 title right up to the last corner against a clearly superior McLaren thanks also to the qualities of Max Verstappen. At the beginning of 2026, not even the Dutch champion has been able to extract Red Bull from the quicksand: the RB22 has evident problems in what was once its strong point – the chassis – and the team has been forced to reorganize the technical sector, promoting Ben Waterhouse. For Ralf Schumacher, very little can be saved in Milton Keynes, which would need a clean-up, starting with team principal Laurent Mekies. Schumacher’s words “I like Laurent, but that’s not his role. He knows how to recruit the best people to work with”, this is Schumacher’s comment on the Backstage Boxengasse podcast. “Now everything is really in turmoil for him. The car is a disaster, it’s heavy and nervous, not even Max can manage it. It should be completely redesigned.” Schumacher then attacked technical director Pierre Waché again after the criticisms of 2025: “A major update is coming, but everyone is holding their breath, they are losing ground. To be honest, I am not optimistic, because I believe that Waché is unable to put the technology in tune with the driver.”