Alpine may have been a clear backmarker in the 2025 Formula 1 season while the world drivers’ title narrowly eluded Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, but three rounds into the 2026 campaign, the two teams are neck and neck.

With Pierre Gasly beating Verstappen to seventh under the chequered flag in the Japanese Grand Prix, both teams have scored 16 points, but Alpine is ranked ahead on countback.

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This is no coincidence, as both Red Bull drivers have openly been unhappy with the RB22’s performance and behaviour – and remain unsure how to even improve the situation.

After Isack Hadjar and Verstappen qualified respectively eighth and 11th at Suzuka, the Frenchman lamented “what we are seeing this weekend makes no sense”, while his elder branded the car “undriveable” and “all over the place”.

Hadjar failed to score points on Sunday after losing out in the safety car sequence – he branded the car “undriveable” to the point that it was “dangerous” – while Verstappen finished eighth, three tenths behind Gasly after a 26-lap battle.

“I think we were a tiny bit faster a lap, but you just can't pass – well you can pass, but then you have no battery the next straight,” the four-time world champion commented. “So, I tried one time just to have a look, so I passed him into the final chicane, but then you have no battery the next straight. So I was like, ‘See you later! Try again in a few laps!’”

Red Bull’s championship situation has been compounded by technical issues taking Hadjar and Verstappen out of the Melbourne and Shanghai races respectively, when they were running in fifth and sixth, causing a potential 16-point loss.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing

Meanwhile, although Franco Colapinto has struggled, Gasly has maximised Alpine’s potential, after the team sacrificed its 2025 campaign to focus on the new-for-2026 regulations early on.

Gasly qualified seventh in the last three sessions (sprint included), scoring points in every grand prix with 10th in Melbourne (from 12th on the grid), sixth at Shanghai and seventh at Suzuka.

Fourth-placed Haas led Red Bull in the standings even before the Japanese round, as Oliver Bearman took seventh and fifth in Australia and China.

Ahead of the season, one might have thought that Red Bull Ford, as a new power unit manufacturer, might be the team’s Achilles heel, but the RB22’s flaws lie elsewhere, according to Hadjar.

“We have a good power unit. The engine is good. The chassis side is terrible. We're just slow in the corners,” the 21-year-old coolly stated.

“The only positive right now is that I can drive the car fast. But we have no lead on how we can make the car fast.”

Perhaps the upcoming Pirelli test, scheduled to take place at Suzuka on Tuesday and Wednesday next week, will be useful in that regard.

“We’ve got upgrades coming up, we’re going to test them, do some sim work, understand what happened on the weekend,” Hadjar told Canal+. “I hope it’ll rain on Tuesday and Wednesday to get some running done and get a head start on others.”

Additional reporting by Jake Boxall-Legge and Ronald Vording

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