racingnews365.com·
Red Bull warned 2026 failure could trigger bombshell Max Verstappen exit
Former F1 driver Johnny Herbert has warned Red Bull that not being
the quickest team in the upcoming 2026 season could trigger Max
Verstappen’s departure. The past two seasons have seen Verstappen
linked with an exit from Red Bull, with talks held with Mercedes
during the first half of 2025. Ultimately, he expressed his loyalty
to the Austrian outfit for this year, as F1 enters a new power unit
regulation cycle. For Red Bull, this also marks the start of life
as its own powertrain supplier, representing the biggest challenge
in the history of the Milton Keynes-based team. While its engine
looked promising during the Barcelona shakedown test, it remains to
be seen how competitive it will be. Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies
has already acknowledged that Verstappen is taking a risk by
sticking with the team, given the scale of the task it faces. As
highlighted by Herbert, the four-time world champion is not in F1
to “finish second”; the Dutchman wants to be on top and secure more
world titles. For that to happen, he needs one of the best — if not
the best — cars on the grid, putting pressure on Red Bull to
deliver and retain the 28-year-old beyond 2026. Discussing what Red
Bull must do this year to keep Verstappen, Herbert told
RacingNews365 at Formula E's Miami E-Prix: "Go faster than all the
others, very clearly, because he knows how the team works. "But
fundamentally, it’s all going to come down to the car you start the
season with — whether it’s the quickest out of the box, one of the
quickest, or very, very close. It might even alternate from track
to track. "That’s where, as a racing driver, you’re always
thinking: what’s going to benefit me over the next couple of years
to win my next world championship? The only way they’re going to
achieve that is by giving him a car he can challenge with. But
challenging is one thing — you’ve got to beat the likes of, say,
Mercedes, for example. "If they don’t, then he’s going to look
elsewhere, because that’s what racing drivers do. He’s not there to
finish second. His core mentality is to win, and when he doesn’t
win, he gets very annoyed. "But Lewis [Hamilton] is the same.
Charles [Leclerc] is the same. George [Russell] is the same. All
the drivers here in Formula E are exactly the same. They’re
competitive animals, like all sportspeople are. Ultimately, it
comes down to what they supply."
