Max Verstappen insists the 2026 Red Bull car has "a lot of potential" despite the team enduring a dismal start to the F1 season.
The RB22 has proven difficult to tame and unpredictable to the extent that even the four-time drivers' champion has not been able to rein in its idiosyncrasies.
Three rounds into the campaign, the Dutchman has scored just 12 points and lies in ninth in the drivers' standings, behind the Haas of Oliver Bearman and Alpine's Pierre Gasly.
The peculiarities of the Milton Keynes-based squad's package have left the Dutchman and team-mate Isack Hadjar fighting the aforementioned teams at the front of F1's midfield, some way off the leading trio of Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren.
Whilst Red Bull has fallen from its perch in recent years, the six-time constructors' champions stayed at the sharp end — until now.
When asked ahead of the recent Japanese Grand Prix, where he finished eighth behind Gasly, Verstappen was asked whether he felt the baseline of the car was competitive.
Speaking to media, including RacingNews365, the 28-year-old replied: "That's what we are working towards. I think there's a lot of potential in the car.
"We just need to understand a few things that have been going wrong – last race [the Chinese Grand Prix], for sure."
In Melbourne, at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, both Verstappen and team principal Laurent Mekies estimated that Red Bull's deficit was half due to the power unit and half due to the chassis.
However, the fledgling power unit project with Ford has surpassed early expectations, to the extent that the team does not stand to gain any help under the upcoming Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities (ADUO) programme.
It also puts the focus of Red Bull's plight back squarely onto the RB22.
"We just need to keep working, keep trying to put more performance on the car, race after race," Verstappen explained, before underlining the unintended benefit of F1's impromptu spring break: "Maybe the little break that we have now, of course, is a good time to look back and analyse even more things, to basically try and be better in Miami."
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