Jacques Villeneuve has said that, even though most of the grid would be likely to want to sign Max Verstappen, an “exciting team” may not be available for him.

The reigning World Champion is contracted to Red Bull until the end of 2028, but the team has acknowledged previously they need to remain competitive in order to retain his services.

Max Verstappen may not have ‘exciting team’ to join in F1 2026 – Villeneuve

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

Verstappen’s father Jos recently responded to rumours linking his son with Mercedes in 2026 by describing them as “nonsense”, with Aston Martin having also held rumoured interest, though both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll are contracted to the team for the next two seasons – with Verstappen’s link to the brand only extending to working with their GT cars.

1997 World Champion Villeneuve believes the reigning champion is a “peculiar driver” in that he requires a “specific car” underneath him, and that not every car on the grid would suit him.

However, when the prospect of potentially heading elsewhere when Formula 1’s regulations change next season, the Canadian explained a viable option to depart Red Bull may not present itself, should he wish to do so.

“It depends on what’s available,” Villeneuve said of Verstappen to Yaysweepstakes.com.

“Maybe next year there’s not an exciting team available for Max Verstappen to leave to join. Even if most teams would want him, maybe the opportunity is not there.

“It’s really difficult to understand. He is a peculiar driver. He really drives to the limit and is always on it. He needs a specific car. Not every car that would suit his driving style.

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“He seems to love very precise cars, very pointy cars with a very good front end, and he can manage the rear. Not many drivers can do that or can do that consistently and not many cars get driven like this or are designed like this.

“Basically the way he drives and the way the car then gets developed makes it really difficult for Formula 2 drivers because they come from an inherently understeering car in Formula 3, and Formula 2 they’re designed similarly — huge amounts of understeer so they drive differently.”

Verstappen recently spoke himself of his preference of driving in the previous pre-2022 generation of Formula 1 car recently, though three of his four titles to date have come in the current machinery.

He told media including PlanetF1.com: “In terms of success, it has been good to me, but in terms of driving, honestly, it’s not been, I think, the most fun, I would say.

“I prefer the other cars, the older cars – also physically, like with the bumps, just it’s not as fun with riding the kerbs and every track now needs to be super smooth, I would say, which is a bit of a shame.

“It’s been good to me in terms of results, but I don’t like to rate things like because of results. Just driving wise, it’s so-so, I would say. I mean, it’s still a Formula 1 car – don’t get me wrong – it’s still very fast, but I do think, like 2020, 2021, those cars were a bit more agile, I would say.”

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