Red Bull's difficult start and 1976 cars compared with 2026 - F1 Q&A

Formula 1's unscheduled fallow April is nearing its end, with the 2026 season resuming with the Miami Grand Prix, from 1-3 May.

While we wait for the action to restart, BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your latest questions.

Before the season, people were saying Red Bull were in the mix with the top teams and that their new engine was in good shape. But they've basically been nowhere. Where do their problems lie, and why were people so wrong about their potential? - Sean

Red Bull have had a very difficult start to the season. It started off looking not too bad, with Isack Hadjar qualifying third at the first race of the season, even though Max Verstappen crashed in qualifying.

Hadjar retired from the race in Melbourne with an engine problem, while Verstappen recovered reasonably well to sixth place in the race.

But in China and Japan they were uncompetitive.

Team principal Laurent Mekies said after the race in Japan: "We left Melbourne thinking that we were one second off Mercedes and half a second off Ferrari. In terms of overall gap to competitors, (here) it looked not too dissimilar to the Melbourne picture in terms of one second to the best guy, half a second to the best Ferrari."

Mekies pointed out that in Australia Verstappen's recovery brought him up to the back of Lando Norris' McLaren but that by Japan Red Bull were a "distant force". In other words, McLaren had progressed and Red Bull had not.

Mekies said that in China Red Bull were "starting to scratch (our) heads about car balance and car characteristics".

He perceives their problem as "some work to do" to close the gap on the competition and "a layer of us not being able to extract enough from the package and to give something Max can push with". The car does not handle with the front-end bite that Verstappen prefers, and which enables him to get the best out of himself.

Mekies was asked whether the bigger gap in China and Japan compared with Australia was simply a corollary of the fact that the Melbourne track has fewer corners to expose the car's weaknesses.

He replied: "It's a fair question. We certainly think that in China we made a step back. And we measure that against, not only against the top guys, but also against the midfield that got closer to us. So, I don't think it's a product of the number of corners only.

"There is a layer where, in certain cornering speed and cornering conditions, we lose some performance compared to what our package is supposed to give us. So, this we need to work on."

One safety aspect that I haven't seen raised is the start in wet conditions. In Australia, Franco Colapinto just missed Liam Lawson because of the Racing Bulls driver's poor start. In the wet, with so much spray generated, visibility will be heavily restricted. Has this been raised by any of the teams? - Paul

The issue of how these power-units will impact wet conditions is very much one that is being discussed within F1.

The concern is not only about closing speeds, but also about the sheer amount of acceleration the cars have now.

I have heard this mentioned by drivers a number of times. It probably hasn't been reported widely because there are bigger-picture issues right now, and there hasn't actually been a wet race yet.

But rest assured it is on the table - and indeed changes were made at Monday's meeting of the F1 Commission.

How much of the F1 car today is controlled by computers/AI? How much by the drivers' skill? Would it be fair to say James Hunt had 100% control of his McLaren in 1976, but Lando Norris has less control of his McLaren, with the team having more? - Michelle

On a very superficial level, yes, it's true that James Hunt had more total control of his car 50 years ago than Lando Norris does now.

F1 was completely analogue back in 1976. Now, electronic systems are involved in all parts of the car. In many ways, this change simply reflects how the lives of everyone on the planet have evolved in the same time period.

There have been some concerns at the start of this year about what might be termed "systems over-reach", even if that's a phrase I have invented myself rather than one I've heard in the paddock.

I'm referring to the complex control and operating systems within the rules governing power-units.

Drivers have mentioned concerns about the engines behaving in ways they did not expect because of these rules stipulations - many of which are regarded by many in F1 as unnecessary stipulations that emerged from governing body the FIA during the rule-making process.

Some of these have been reduced following Monday's meeting of the F1 Commission. More may - and some would say should - go as this season develops and into next year.

In the big picture, though, with the caveats of the regulations, F1 cars are still the fastest and most demanding in the world, and they are still testing the drivers to the limit.

How they do that changes over the years. But the fundamentals remain the same.

All the talk is about Gianpiero Lambiase leaving Red Bull for McLaren, but it won't happen until 2028 - more than a year from now. So how will Red Bull treat him all that time? They won't want him to be privy to all their development secrets to take with him, so will they shut him out of engineers' meetings, like for departing drivers? But then how could he do his current job? - Dave

This is a very similar situation to the one that surrounded Red Bull's former head of strategy, Will Courtenay, who is now McLaren's sporting director.

It emerged at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix that Courtenay had signed to join McLaren when his contract ended, and Red Bull emphasised that he would not be allowed to leave before 2026.

They did not specify exactly when in 2026, and BBC Sport has been told that negotiations were held that led to him starting work at McLaren on 1 January this year.

Despite that, for the entirety of last year, Courtenay stayed in his previous role, even though Red Bull were fighting McLaren for the drivers' championship.

For now, the same thing will happen with Lambiase - he will continue in his role as Red Bull's head of racing and race engineer to Verstappen for the foreseeable future.

However, just because Red Bull's statement announcing his departure said he would not be joining McLaren until 2028 does not necessarily mean that will be the case.

McLaren's statement said Lambiase would join "no later than 2028". That means they will be hoping to come to an agreement with Red Bull that shortens that timeframe.

It's worth pointing out, meanwhile, that McLaren have emphasised that Lambiase is joining to provide support for team principal Andrea Stella, not ultimately replace him.

Stella has until now been fulfilling the role to which Lambiase has been appointed, that of chief racing officer, in addition to that of team principal.

Stella said last week: "Zak (Brown, the chief executive officer of McLaren Racing) and I have built a flat team structure, in which it is essential to ensure all leaders are properly empowered, but at the same time, we must guarantee there is always the necessary level of long-term support.

"It goes without saying that, with this approach, the dual role I currently hold could not be sustainable in the long run."

McLaren have indirectly - but very clearly - rejected what are said to be inaccurate reports that Stella is on his way to Ferrari.

Stella said in a statement issued by McLaren on Friday: "Some of the recent rumours, including those regarding astronomical salaries and mythical pre-contracts, have made me smile.

"It almost seems as though the 'silly season', which usually begins before summer, has arrived early.

"I'm quite used to this sort of thing by now and I take with a smile. It almost looks as if some envious pastry chef has tried to spoil the preparation of a good dessert at the McLaren patisserie. However, we do know very well how to distinguish the good ingredients from the poisoned biscuits."

Every grand prix this year has been a straightforward one-stop stop race, start on the medium then change to the hard. Do Pirelli/FIA need to do something about this to give teams more strategy options? - William

The question is true, but this is not a massive change.

The default strategy in F1 - ever since the rule that drivers had to start the race on the tyre they used to set their best time in second qualifying was removed for the 2022 season - has been exactly that. Start on the medium, aim to make a single stop and switch to the hard.

How to stop this happening has been a discussion for some time, because F1 bosses believe that races with more than one stop are more interesting.

Hence decisions such as Pirelli bringing tyre selections with a step between compounds, or compounds that it felt were veering towards too soft for that track.

None have had much success.

Right now, with all the discussion about the new rules, and the more entertaining racing this year, this particular topic is on the back burner. Doubtless it will rear its head again at some point.