The 2025 Formula 1 season could see Max Verstappen cement his place among the sport’s greatest drivers.
Only Michael Schumacher has won five F1 championships on the bounce, but Max Verstappen could match that record if he continues the dominance he’s established over the rest of the grid since 2021.
Red Bull have been the team to beat during the current set of regulations, but McLaren and Ferrari finally toppled the Anglo-Austrian midway through last year.
Lando Norris virtually matched Verstappen’s points tally after winning the Miami Grand Prix, but the lead the 27-year-old established at the beginning of the year gave him the buffer he needed to match Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel’s championship tally.
Retaining his title in 2025 is going to be more difficult than the three previous seasons unless Red Bull have suddenly made a breakthrough over the winter with their car.
However, he’ll understand that there are far more unknowns beyond this season with the biggest ruleset change in the sport’s history on the horizon.
The 2026 regulations in F1 are likely to shake up the pecking order in the paddock but Red Bull have one additional unknown that many of their rivals won’t be dealing with.
Red Bull Powertrains are working closely alongside Ford to build the team’s first engine for 2026 with the expiration of their deal with Honda on the horizon.
However, former F1 driver and pundit Christian Danner – in an interview with Motorsport Magazin – believes Verstappen has nothing to worry about when it comes to next year’s Red Bull.
Christian Danner believes Red Bull Powertrains ‘won’t be a flop’ in 2026
Danner was asked if Red Bull’s 2026 power unit working alongside Ford is going to be a flop and if that’s the reason why Verstappen might join Mercedes and he answered: “It won’t be a flop.
“I can see that quite clearly the people who are working in Milton Keynes on the Ford engine, the Red Bull engine, are extremely established and extremely experienced engineers.
READ MORE: Christian Horner explains how Red Bull are going to take a ‘massive leap’ going into the 2026 F1 season
“It’s not some kind of garage where a few mechanics try to put a few connecting rods together, it’s state-of-the-art.
“That’s what my crystal ball tells me quite clearly, they’ve been driving at the front from the beginning.”
Max Verstappen’s Formula 1 future linked to success of Red Bull Powertrains in 2026
Verstappen’s current Red Bull contract runs until the end of 2028, but whether he sees out the next four campaigns with the team is yet to be seen.
The Dutchman has made his desire not to spend the next decade racing in Formula 1 clear, and so sitting around waiting for Red Bull to return to the front of the grid is unlikely to be on his radar if Red Bull Powertrains holds the team back.
Mercedes have been interested in signing Verstappen for some time, and if they are the leading force in the sport next season, they may be very hard to turn down.
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Aston Martin also want to sign Verstappen and a reunion with Adrian Newey and Honda might be hard to turn down.
Verstappen is much more loyal to the Red Bull cause than his father Jos who has a strained relationship with Christian Horner, to say the least.
If he sees a sporting opportunity to convince Max to move on then he’ll try and capitalise on it, putting additional pressure on Red Bull Powertrains to be the success Danner thinks it will be.
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