Max Verstappen is the top favorite for the 2027 World Championship

Red Bull Racing began 2026 at a significant disadvantage. Over the first four Grands Prix of the season, the Austrian team was, on average, a second behind the benchmark, Mercedes, both in terms of qualifying and the race. A huge deficit, but 2026 has shown that it was not insurmountable.

It was not entirely surprising that Red Bull started behind. For one thing, 2026 was the first time it began an F1 season with its in-house power unit. Moreover, the team had to also continue developing its 2025 challenger for a long time. Everything was done to keep Max Verstappen’s fifth world title hopes alive, which he ultimately missed out on by the tiniest of margins.

With completely new engines and entirely new regulations for the cars, it was clear from day one that the 2026 campaign would not be about where you stood at the start of the season, but where you finished it. With so many new rules, a considerable learning curve was ahead.

In that light, Red Bull Racing’s development is particularly interesting to examine. If you start a season one second off the pace, you rarely make up that deficit. It is worth remembering that Verstappen was still battling Pierre Gasly’s Alpine for eighth place in Japan. By October, that seems almost inconceivable.

The analysis mainly shows that Red Bull has made enormous gains in race pace. For the analysis, the 16-race season was divided into four blocks of four races. From the first block to the second, Red Bull had already made a major leap forward. With its updates, Red Bull halved the gap to Mercedes. Throughout the summer, the gap remained at around half a second, until Red Bull arrived in Baku with its next round of updates.

Looking at the final block of four races, which also includes the weaker race in Monza, Red Bull is suddenly less than two-tenths off in terms of race pace. Mercedes, which did not have the fastest car in Monza, Azerbaijan or Malaysia, consequently loses a great deal of ground. Piastri’s claim that Red Bull and Mercedes are now on equal footing is certainly not unfounded.

Red Bull’s progress can also be seen in qualifying pace. The improvement is less apparent because of Verstappen’s weaker qualifying performance in Baku, but even there the development shows a positive trend.

While Red Bull’s trajectory has been consistently upward, Ferrari and McLaren’s trend lines have been far more erratic. Ferrari has steadily become faster, but alternates strong weekends with extreme disappointments. Its dramatic strategic decision in Malaysia is yet another example of Ferrari failing to make the most of a good car.

McLaren has also alternated strong weekends with weaker ones, but this is mainly down to the car itself. On weekends where there are barely any long straights, McLaren has been almost unbeatable since the summer. Lando Norris was clearly the fastest in Zandvoort, Hungary and Madrid. However, there are too many circuits with long straights where McLaren simply lacks the top speed needed to make a serious bid for victory.

Mercedes’ development, or lack thereof, is the most concerning of all. As the benchmark, it is naturally more difficult to make forward progress, but compared with all its rivals, the German team has lost ground. Red Bull has even made up a full second. Is Mercedes simply asleep at the wheel?

No, Mercedes is also bringing updates, but they are clearly working less effectively than those of its competitors. In fact, there are now serious doubts about whether Mercedes’ latest updates have made the car slower. That is why George Russell is running the old package in Singapore, while Kimi Antonelli is using the new one purely for comparison. You still see these kinds of situations among backmarker teams, but rarely at the front.

In any case, this means Mercedes is alert. If the track is producing different results from the wind tunnel and computer systems, then no update will work. For a team already working on its 2027 car, that is a worrying signal.

Red Bull clearly does not have those problems at the moment. It understands the regulations and can develop the car accordingly. The updates brought to the track show that the correlation with the wind tunnel and computer systems is accurate. It is the ideal combination for a team aiming to win the world title in 2027.

Naturally, there is still plenty to come, and no team is standing still, but the development race in 2026 is a good indicator for next year's performance. And that currently paints one clear picture: Red Bull has everything working best, making Verstappen the favorite for the 2027 world title.