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Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies believes the team will have all the ingredients ready to launch a bid for the 2027 F1 titles after a "hard reality" realisation in Australia. The RB22 began the season off the pace of the leading Mercedes W17 and Ferrari SF-26, with Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar locked in a battle with McLaren's MCL40 for third and fourth best machine. Unlike Mercedes and Ferrari, both Red Bull and McLaren were unable to switch focus onto 2026 during the 2025 title run-in, with Verstappen launching an incredible title challenge, eventually falling just two points short of beating Lando Norris to the title. This extra development on the 2025 car had a knock-on effect for the 2026 one, with the team also becoming a power unit manufacturer for the first time with its own in-house Red Bull Powertrains (RBPT) unit, which has proved to be surprisingly competitive. However, despite the optimism after pre-season, Mekies has detailed the feeling of when the team arrived in Australia for the season-opener and discovered its true position in the pecking order, as he also warned Red Bull's rivals that for 2027, the good ship Milton Keynes will be fully in order. "You get to Melbourne, and you get these massive positives: the dark cloud is not there anymore, and actually, we are going to fight this season, one way or another; we are going to fight," Mekies told RACER of his feelings in Australia. "But then the hard reality is that you are 1.2 seconds off the pace, which in fairness is probably quite logical if you think how late we pushed last year. "And in some respects, you also see that with our friends at McLaren this year, and we probably pushed even harder and later than they did last year. "So if you combine that, [with building] the power unit here, fine, we were 1.2 seconds away – part of it from chassis side, part of it from PU side – but it felt we could have a fight. "As much as the public and perhaps the wider audience were surprised that we said: 'Oh, guys, we will be the fourth team, and we take it as a positive right now,' then of course when you are at the race weekend, and you see the reality of seeing three other teams in front of you, it's not a very pleasant feeling. "But Red Bull Racing has done what it is incredible at doing – development pace, and we are now just half a season on, and the best part of this 1.2 seconds has gone. We are probably left with the last 0.3s compared to the ultimate pace. "We very well know the last 0.3s are the most difficult ones, and only time will tell if we manage to get those last three. "But I have to pay credit to Pierre [Waché's] team, to Ben [Hodgkinson's] team, for what has been achieved in these few months, four months, five months- in getting us back into normality of fighting for the win one day or fighting for the podium at the next race. "I don't think we go into next year with any disadvantage compared to Mercedes, McLaren or Ferrari. It doesn't mean that it will be us or them or whatever. "It means that you will have four top teams that will have a fairly equal chance to develop their car to challenge for the title next year." Also interesting: Join RacingNews365's Nick Golding and Samuel Coop as they dissect the biggest storylines looking ahead to the second half of the F1 season, featuring the likes of Kimi Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Rather watch the podcast? Then click here! Get the latest F1 news from RacingNews365 directly in your Google feed! Click on the link below and you’ll see your favourite F1 website appearing even more often. That way, you’ll never miss any news, analyses, interviews, or exclusives. Follow RacingNews365 on Google Most read In this article Never miss a thing from the Formula 1 season! Add the 2026 F1 schedule to your calendar at the touch of a button. Subscribe below and put the dates and times of every race directly on your PC or smartphone, so you don't miss a second from the new season. Download the F1 calendar Download the F1 calendar A variant with just the race and qualifying is also available. Click here to download it..