Red Bull admits Max Verstappen's mysterious car issue cannot be fully fixed until 2027

At Monza, when qualifying ended, Max Verstappen stepped out of the car with the expression I have seen many times over forty years of following races: not anger, but the confusion of a man who trusts data, yet the data cannot explain what is happening. The Red Bull RB22 kept losing rear-axle performance lap after lap, and he could not tell his engineer exactly where the feeling came from. Data only tells part of the story; the rest lies in knowing how to listen. That small moment at the edge of the pit lane exposed a bigger truth: Red Bull Racing has admitted that Verstappen's mysterious problem cannot be fully fixed before 2027. Not because they do not want to, but because they no longer have enough financial and technical space to race under the 2026 rules while decoding a systemic error that has followed them across car generations. According to the official communication from the team, the issue is located at the rear axle and appears as a performance drop across each session and each race. At Monza, it appeared right in qualifying. At Madrid, where Red Bull brought a few test components, the car showed positive steps, but there is no lap-time data proving the problem has disappeared. I do not trust qualitative descriptions. I need telemetry, tyre-wear data, rear-axle temperature maps. And when the team only says “we have had positive steps”, I hear in their voice the caution of people who have failed too many times to reproduce this issue in simulation. The key context is that the 2026 technical regulations changed everything. The RB22 is not an evolution of its predecessor; it is a completely new design with active aerodynamics, a new internal combustion engine and a restructured electrical power unit. Yet the rear-axle performance loss still appears with similar intensity. That leads to an uncomfortable conclusion: the root cause is not a specific component, but the way Red Bull develops its cars and correlates simulation data with track reality. The budget cap is a binding constraint. Each new part for the RB22 takes the place of a part intended for the 2027 car. The team has decided to accept a compromised season in exchange for long-term competitiveness. It is a cold engineering choice, but it puts Max Verstappen in an extremely difficult position. So what is the real technical issue? With my background of working inside the AC Milan coaching staff, my instinct is to look for systemic faults before blaming a single part. Looking at the RB22's rear axle, I see three possibilities. First, the rear suspension. When a car loses performance across a session, the cause is often a change in ride height caused by heat building up in the tyres and suspension. Verstappen's comments about the rear axle, combined with the fact that the problem was clearest at Monza – a rough, high-speed track – make me think this is a mechanical balance problem more than a pure aerodynamic one. At high speed, downforce pushes the car down, and if the suspension cannot keep the platform stable, the rear starts sliding. Every lap it gets worse until Verstappen no longer trusts the car enough to push. Second, the interaction between active aero and the rear axle. The 2026 rules allow moving parts to control airflow. This is a revolution, but also a double-edged sword. If a sensor sends a wrong signal, or if the control system reacts too late to pressure changes at the rear axle, the car can become unstable in a way that is very hard to reproduce in the wind tunnel. At Madrid, I suspect they tried a new algorithm for the active rear wing, but they were afraid to push the speed limit for fear of repeating the Monza error. Third, and the one I care about most: a correlation error between simulation and reality. Red Bull dominated for a long time because of superior simulation tools. But when the regulations change radically, even the best tools can carry a hidden flaw. The rear-axle issue has persisted for multiple seasons, and it still exists on a completely different car. That suggests Red Bull may be facing a fundamental correlation flaw that cannot be fixed by changing a wing, but only by rebuilding from the foundations. I want to pause and say something about data culture. Every tracking number should be put on the operating table, not on a pedestal. Red Bull has so much data that it is starting to contradict itself. An engineer can tell Verstappen that the rear axle loses twenty percent of grip at lap fifteen, but nobody can tell him what to do to stop it. From a tactical point of view, a rear-axle problem affects everything: corner speed, traction, tyre temperature, and finally race pace. Every collapse has preconditions; only a few people are willing to look for them in advance. Now I want to offer a contrarian view. Red Bull says they cannot fix it before 2027 because of the budget. I want to believe that, but in racing, such explanations often hide something harder to say: the organisation is losing cohesion between departments. A winning team needs a great driver, a great technical staff and a smooth information chain. Red Bull may have all the people, but the analysis room and the design office may no longer speak the same language. The problem may not be money, but the absence of a department strong enough to connect fragmented data streams. An empty grandstand does not kill the race, but it takes away something numbers cannot measure. That line from my football writing applies here. When Verstappen knows his car can betray him at any moment, he starts driving defensively. These invisible doubts appear in the final results, not in telemetry. Another contrarian possibility: Red Bull may be deliberately lowering expectations for 2026 to extend Verstappen's patience. They say “we cannot fix it until 2027”, sending a signal to the driver market. I am not saying this is a performance, but in F1 every message has a purpose. This problem did not begin with the RB22. Some engineers remember seeing this kind of rear-axle degradation as early as the 2026-2026 aerodynamic regulation cycle. Back then Red Bull had a car so superior that they could hide the flaw by turning down the engine and still pulling away. Verstappen never needed to push to the limit every lap. In 2026, with McLaren and Ferrari closing the gap, he has to run at 99.5 percent of the car's potential just to stay close, and the issue becomes a bottleneck. Monza does not forgive unpredictable cars. If the rear axle starts sliding at more than 200 km/h, the driver has no time to react. Verstappen's description of a slow degradation across qualifying suggests the car does not betray him at the beginning, but at the most important moment. I do not have Red Bull's GPS data, but I can hypothesise that the RB22 is very fast on the straight, yet loses rear grip when the rear tyres reach their temperature limit. When the tyres overheat, contact patch shrinks, grip falls, and the car becomes unstable. Madrid is a new venue, and the team says they tested a few components there. I believe they received good sensor signals, but they have only tested hypotheses, not solved the problem. If you read the Red Bull statement carefully, they never say “we have found the cause”. They only say the problem cannot be fully fixed before 2027. That is the language of a team in survival mode, not of a winning team. The rear axle is the heart of modern F1 car performance. If a problem persists through multiple car generations, the root cause lies deeper, perhaps in the chassis architecture, where the suspension and gearbox create an unwanted vibration frequency. That frequency can amplify with speed and directly affect the driver's confidence. Verstappen is extremely sensitive to rear-axle behaviour. He does not like a car that slides too much; he wants a sharp front end and a stable rear. When the rear starts moving, he loses trust and must brake earlier. I have seen this happen to great drivers before. In the late 1990s, a former world champion nearly lost the season because he could not understand what his car was doing at the exit of a corner. Budget is a magic word. In F1, the budget cap is real, but for a top team, budget is also about priorities. Red Bull could choose to fix the RB22 immediately, but they would have to sacrifice wind-tunnel work on the 2027 car. Sacrificing a season is normal for a long-term project. The problem is that Verstappen is not a normal employee. If Red Bull tells him the car cannot be fixed until 2027, they must explain why he should stay patient. Patience is a very expensive commodity in racing. The biggest danger of such an admission is not inside Red Bull, but in how rivals use it. If McLaren or Ferrari know that the RB22 loses performance over a race, they can pressure Verstappen early, force the rear-axle problem to appear, and attack late in the race. I have seen the same dynamic in football. Once a team finds a defender's weakness, they target it again and again. I also can't ignore the psychological side. When a champion has to question his car, he begins to doubt everything. He no longer knows when to brake, when to accelerate, how much steering angle to use. This hesitation cannot be seen on telemetry, but it shows up in results. In a quiet empty grandstand, the driver must fight his own fear. Verstappen has dealt with pressure before, but this enemy is invisible: it comes from his own machine. History teaches us that great teams collapse when they become complacent. The German football team at the 2026 World Cup forgot that football never forgives the arrogant. They trusted their system and ignored how rivals had learned to stop them. Red Bull is in a similar place. Their dominance was so long that cracks could develop without anyone noticing. F1, though, is cyclical. A team can drop away for two seasons and then come back with a rules change. Red Bull is betting on 2027. They may be right, but they may also have spent too long trying to fix a problem that should have been found in 2026. I will only believe in results on the track, not in promises. The 2026 season is long, and Red Bull still has chances. But every race will be a survival test. I will pay special attention to bumpy circuits, where the rear-axle problem should appear most. If Verstappen falls behind there, the problem is not truly understood. If he keeps consistent pace, I will change my mind. That is how an analyst should work: verify, doubt, listen. Finally, I want to look at the wider picture. The 2026 rules were designed to create closer racing, and they are working. Red Bull is no longer an untouchable giant. McLaren has momentum, Ferrari has stability, Mercedes has technical intelligence. If Red Bull's problem continues, the balance of power will shift, and once power shifts, it is very hard to pull back. 2027 is a year and a half away. In F1, that is enough time to change a team's fate. Red Bull may return with a strong car, or they may keep sliding while Verstappen looks for a new home. I cannot see the future, but I know that every collapse has preconditions, and those preconditions have been written for a long time under the paint of a car still celebrated by the media. Look at Monza, look at Madrid, and remember that data only tells part of the story. The rest lies in whether people are brave enough to listen.