Red Bull set clear goals for rest of F1 season

Red Bull technical director Pierre Waché has made clear the team's ambitions have not wavered despite a difficult first half of the F1 campaign, insisting the priority remains making the RB22 a race-winning car.

Speaking at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where Max Verstappen secured a second-place finish to register the team's best result of the season for a second time, Waché outlined a development plan stretching to the end of the year as Red Bull look to avoid a first winless season since 2015.

Verstappen, too, faces the prospect of ending a year without a victory for the first time since his rookie campaign with Toro Rosso that same year.

The 2026 regulations have not been kind to Red Bull. The RB22 has suffered from a narrow operating window, chronic balance issues, excess weight, and early-season power unit reliability problems that led to retirements for both Verstappen and Isack Hadjar.

A hidden steering defect in the opening rounds compounded an already difficult situation, robbing drivers of front-end feel before the fault was identified and rectified.

Even with those issues resolved, Red Bull has remained broadly the fourth-fastest team behind Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren, and is yet to stand on the top step of the podium after 11 rounds.

Against that backdrop, Waché was asked how many updates remain possible and whether Verstappen can still target victories this season.

"It's difficult to say," the Frenchman told media, including RacingNews365. "Going for wins this year is what we aim for.

"We are trying to improve the car. Clearly, we have a development plan until the end of the year.

"Everything we can do to improve the car, learn how this regulation works and understand how development can affect the characteristics and pace of the car, we are trying to do.

Waché highlighted how certain factors in the rulebook will prevent the Milton Keynes-based team from delivering exactly what it wants, but it nonetheless remains committed to returning to the top step of the podium this year.

"For sure, in terms of efficiency, we have some limitations in the regulations that could limit what we are doing," he added.

"But everything we can do to make the car capable of winning, could be Max or Isack, we are doing."