Jenson Button's blunt advice to Red Bull: Build a faster car

Former F1 champion Jenson Button has distilled Red Bull's early-season struggles into a simple, direct solution: the team needs to build a faster car. His comments come as the newly-independent Red Bull Powertrains (RBPT) unit has shown promise, but the team's chassis performance has become a glaring weakness, dropping them behind rivals like McLaren and even Haas in recent races.

Why it matters:

Red Bull's turbulent start to the new regulations era challenges the narrative that their new power unit was the primary concern. Instead, a chassis deficit is hampering their ability to compete, putting immense pressure on the team's aerodynamic and design departments to close a significant performance gap and prevent a prolonged slump in the ultra-competitive midfield.

The details:

• The Core Problem: Button and analyst Karun Chandhok pinpointed the car's balance and aerodynamic performance as key weaknesses, with the Chinese Grand Prix serving as a clear illustration of these struggles.
• Power Unit vs. Chassis: Initial fears centered on the brand-new RBPT power unit, but it has proven surprisingly competitive. Button noted the power unit has likely "performed better than what the car has," flipping the script on pre-season expectations.
• A Team in Transition: Chandhok emphasized the impressive scale of RBPT's achievement, built "from nothing" in just a few years, but stressed that the overall package still needs considerable work to move up the grid.
• The Performance Gap: While team principal Laurent Mekies initially estimated a 50/50 split between power unit and chassis deficits in Melbourne, the recent performances suggest the chassis is now the predominant limiting factor.

What's next:

The focus at Milton Keynes will intensely shift to car development. Expect a flurry of upgrades as the team seeks to understand and maximize its current package. The coming races will be a critical test of Red Bull's ability to diagnose its aerodynamic issues and produce effective in-season developments to salvage their campaign.