‘I'm very open-minded' – Max Verstappen hints at 2026 plans amid speculation he will quit Red Bull for Mercedes
MAX RELAX 'I'm very open-minded' – Max Verstappen hints at 2026 plans amid speculation he will quit Red Bull for Mercedes
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MAX VERSTAPPEN revealed he is "very open-minded" about Formula One's massive regulation reset next season.
Teams are now solely focusing on the biggest regulation change in F1 history with nearly every technical classification being ripped up.
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Max Verstappen revealed he is 'open-minded' about next season's regulation changes
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The last big reset happened after Verstappen pipped Lewis Hamilton to the 2021 world title in the most dramatic season finale of all time.
And Red Bull came out best again, rising from the ashes of the controversy to replace Mercedes as the team to beat in the Constructors championship.
The new and bigger changes are set to establish a brand new pecking order with the rumour mill predicting Mercedes could regain their old supremacy in 2026.
For Verstappen and Red Bull, the new package creates a chance to re-establish itself as the benchmark in F1 after being dethroned by McLaren this time last year.
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TAKING THE MICK Michael Schumacher's son Mick in talks over 'incredible' F1 return
There has been speculation that Verstappen could defect to Mercedes, with team principal Toto Wolff confirming that talks had gone on behind closed doors.
But Verstappen remained coy when asked about his plans for next season, insisting that he'll "figure it out" no matter the team.
The four time world champion told RacingNews365: "I'm in the middle. Maybe it'll be good, maybe it'll be bad – we'll see.
"I'm very open-minded, honestly. I don't even think about it too much – I'm just enjoying the moment.
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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is reportedly readying a scoop for Verstappen
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"When I sit in the car next year, we'll figure it out. I'm not making the rules anyway.
"Even if I have my concerns, it's not going to change anything.
Glamorous TikToker Bianca Bustamante gives behind-the-scenes look at a Formula E race week
"So I'll just jump in and drive it, and then we'll, along the way, get better at it, understand it better, like any regulation in the past.
"You keep optimising, keep improving, and then just go from there, really."
Mercedes are yet to offer No1 driver George Russell, 27, a new contract to his deal that expires at the end of the season, but the Brit could yet stay to maybe partner Verstappen in 2026.
Red Bull will enter a new era in a technical partnership with Ford as they build their own Red Bull Powertrains engine.
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The Milton-Keynes based outfit sensationally sacked boss Christian Horner after 20 years in charge last week.
Laurent Mekies has been appointed as the new CEO, stepping up from the Racing Bulls team.
Drivers are currently enjoying a mini summer break, with the next race due to commence in Belgium on July 27.
Verstappen currently sits 69 points behind Drivers Championship leader Oscar Piastri, who only sits eight points above team-mate Lando Norris.
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But the new rules have aspects that are intended to impede that to Allison, this will likely mean that the cars next year typically run lower at the rear than in the previous generation - but not as low as the ground-effect cars of the current said: "The low ride-height Mercedes (of the previous era) is vastly higher than the cars of the current generation, and I suspect that the new generation cars will be in between where we are now and the lower end of the ranks that we saw in the 2014 to 2021 era." How can teams have a 'feel' for who is ahead in developing the new engines for 2026 when the manufacturers presumably keep everything as secret as possible? - AlexIt's a good question because, on the face of it, no one should know anything about the relative performance of next year's engines, because the manufacturers are all working on them in reality, though, F1 might be big business and have a huge following, but it is a relatively small world, and people a start, the manufacturers have to discuss their engines with governing body the FIA for a whole bunch of there is movement between teams and manufacturers in terms of employment - people leaving one team or engine company to work for another. When they get there, they will obviously take knowledge of where their previous employer was, and be able to share that with their new then there is just general gossip between people in the while individual manufacturers do their best to stop performance figures creeping out, inevitably they do, to some how an impression last time there was a major change of engine design, there was a lot of talk about Mercedes being ahead of the rest. No one knew for sure whether that was true until the cars first ran in pre-season testing, when it became immediately apparent that it situation this year feels very similar. Again, no one knows for sure, but the grapevine says that Mercedes are is a lot of complexity in the new engine architecture is changing, with the removal of the MGU-H, the part of the hybrid system that recovers energy from the power split of the engine is changing, with the electrical part of the engine now set to produce about 50% of total output, up from about 20% need to recover that much energy - in combination with the removal of the MGU-H, which had a powerful impact on recovery - has led to a change in the aerodynamic rules.F1 is introducing moveable aerodynamics - both the front and rear wing have high- and low-drag modes. The idea is that drag can be reduced on the straights, to increase speeds, to make braking distances longer, to increase the time energy can be recovered during deployment and recovery aspects of the engines will also be very different from example, the engines will likely be run at high revs during cornering simply so energy can be recovered for use on the straights. In that situation, the internal combustion engine is effectively being used as an energy generator for the there is the fully sustainable fuel, which is being manufactured without any use of fossil fuels. These will also have an impact on snippets of information about all these aspects of the new engines creep out one way or another, and a sense of who is in a good place and who is less so starts to it is, of course, all guesstimation at the moment.
