VIENNA
\nMax Verstappen at the Red Bull Ring is usually a recipe for success.
\nThe defending Formula 1 champion has an upgraded car for his team\u2019s home race in Austria \u2014 where he\u2019s won five times \u2014 on the back of an encouraging second place in Canada, where his two McLaren rivals collided.
\nZoom out, though, and the situation is much more uncertain.
\nVerstappen remains at risk of a one-race ban for too many penalty points, Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda is usually too far adrift to help him, and Verstappen\u2019s own future is far from clear.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think we need to talk about that,\u201d Verstappen said Thursday when asked to confirm whether he\u2019ll stay with the team for 2026. \u201cIt\u2019s not really in my mind. It\u2019s just driving and trying to push the performance, you know. And then we focus on next year.\u201d
\nRed Bull\u2019s upgrades seemed to work well in Verstappen\u2019s first outing in Friday practice. He was second-fastest, 0.065 of a second off George Russell for Mercedes.
\nStandings leader Oscar Piastri was third-fastest for McLaren, .155 off the pace, but the star of the session was young driver Alex Dunne, who took over Lando Norris\u2019 McLaren for the session and placed fourth.
\nLewis Hamilton was ninth-fastest for Ferrari and Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda only 17th.
\nWhat are Verstappen\u2019s options?
\nVerstappen has a long-term contract through 2028, so in theory his Red Bull seat should be one of the safest on the grid. However, the deal has performance-related clauses which could reportedly allow a move.
\nIn that case, the most obvious option could be Mercedes, which has yet to confirm either driver for 2026. That would mean Verstappen teaming up with an old foe in Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, who\u2019d also have to choose to drop either Russell and Kimi Antonelli.
\nDramatic changes to how F1 cars look and perform are coming in 2026, and Red Bull has to adapt more than most.
\nFor the first time in nearly two decades, it heads into a new era of F1 rules without design guru Adrian Newey, who left last year and is now at Aston Martin.
\nThe other leading teams are sticking with their current engine arrangements, but not Red Bull. The team has an in-house engine developer, Red Bull Powertrains, but it\u2019s switching partners for 2026 from Honda to newcomer Ford.
\nThe second seat
\nNo team in F1 depends as much on one driver as Red Bull does on Verstappen. He\u2019s scored 155 of the team\u2019s 162 points this season.
\nHis teammates \u2014 first Liam Lawson, then Tsunoda \u2014 have struggled all season. That\u2019s helped to restore the reputation of Sergio Perez, who was dropped by Red Bull after scoring barely one-third of Verstappen\u2019s points last season.
\n\u201cI know, deep down, they really regret it,\u201d Perez said on a podcast this week. \u201cAnd I know that from a very reliable source. It\u2019s tough. I have very good friends there, and people might think I take pleasure in what happened, but no.\u201d
\nRed Bull\u2019s car seems to favor Verstappen\u2019s driving style over anyone else\u2019s, but the Dutch driver says he can\u2019t diagnose the issue because he\u2019s been with the team since 2016 and has nothing else to compare it with.
\n\u201cThe thing is that I don\u2019t know any better, right?\u201d he said Thursday. \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve basically started with Red bull, so I only know one car and that\u2019s how I drive. I adapt to it. Is it the best? Is it the fastest? Is it not? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VIENNA Max Verstappen at the Red Bull Ring is usually a recipe for success. The defending Formula 1 champion has an upgraded car for his team\u2019s home race in Austria \u2014 where he\u2019s won five times \u2014 on the back of an encouraging second place in Canada, where his two McLaren rivals collided. Zoom out, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":82953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82954,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82938\/revisions\/82954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}