Red Bull Prepares Important but Conservative Austrian GP Upgrade

Red Bull will roll out its second major upgrade package of the 2026 season at this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix, but team principal Laurent Mekies has already warned fans not to expect miracles. The changes touch every area of the car, yet the real goal is more basic than revolutionary: finally erasing a weight penalty that has dragged the team down since the season opener.

Why it matters:

The Milton Keynes squad is believed to have started the year with a 12-kilogram weight disadvantage, the heaviest of any front-running team. That excess has helped leave Red Bull stuck in fourth place in the constructors' standings, a full 52 points behind McLaren in third, and clearing it is the essential first step before any talk of a genuine turnaround becomes realistic.

The details:

• Miami's earlier upgrade removed roughly half of the excess weight; the Austrian package is designed to wipe out the rest and get the car down to the minimum limit.
• Once the chassis is no longer overweight, the design team can shift focus from saving grams to finding raw pace through aerodynamic and mechanical development.
• Mekies told select media that the Spielberg update "alone will not be enough" and that Red Bull must stay on its "continuous closing the gap trajectory" rather than expecting a single leap.
• Despite changes across the entire car, RacingNews365 sources indicate the solutions are deliberately conservative, avoiding extreme concepts in favor of solid, reliable weight reduction.

What's next:

Free from its crash diet, Red Bull should be able to push through performance-centric updates far more aggressively through the summer. A strong result at the Red Bull Ring is critical to eating into McLaren's buffer, and if the package works as intended, it could mark the point where the team stops measuring the gap in four-tenths and starts genuinely closing in on the front-runners.