Karun Chandhok has revealed Red Bull are \u201cnervous\u201d about Max Verstappen\u2019s future in F1.<\/p>\n
Verstappen<\/a> saw his four-year reign at the top of F1 ended by Lando Norris <\/a>as he narrowly missed out on winning a fifth consecutive world championship in 2025 by just two points to the McLaren driver.<\/p>\n The Dutchman\u2019s future is set to become a hot topic in 2026 depending on Red Bull\u2019s performance and how competitive their first-ever in-house power unit is when F1 enters its new era of regulations.<\/p>\n Sky Sports F1 pundit and ex driver Chandhok said some within Red Bull have shared concerns about Verstappen\u2019s future with the team.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s also consideration as to how much Max will enjoy the new generation car,\u201d Chandhok told The F1 Show podcast.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s a few people at Red Bull – at the airport in Sao Paulo I was chatting to some of them at the gate – and they were all a bit nervous.<\/p>\n \u201c[They were] saying, ‘Actually, we’re a bit concerned Max just might not enjoy F1 2026, as much’.<\/p>\n \u201cThat might be tricky, because it is a very different style of racing.<\/p>\n \u201cThey hope that’s not the case. If that is the case, it might favour the other car – in this case, Hadjar.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked if Verstappen could walk away mid-season if the car is not to his liking, Chandhok replied: This year proved actually, that he doesn’t do that, does he?\u00a0He doesn’t walk away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Verstappen has admitted that his long-term future in F1 will largely depend on how much \u201cfun\u201d the next generation of cars are to drive.<\/p>\n Verstappen \u2018will be in the best car in 2027\u2019<\/p>\n Verstappen has continually been linked with the likes of Mercedes and Aston Martin over the past year.<\/p>\n Chandhok believes the 28-year-old will have the luxury of choosing where he wants to drive in 2027 if Red Bull do not deliver him a competitive car.<\/p>\n \u201cMax Verstappen will be in the best car in 2027. Which one that will be, we don\u2019t know yet. He doesn\u2019t know yet,\u201d Chandhok added.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first quarter of next year will be a look, watch, analyse, think period for him. I think by the summer he will pick and choose.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cEvery single team on that grid will open their arms and welcome him, because as we\u2019ve all established, he is the top dog on the grid today.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bigger question really is about the powertrains, are they going to hit the ground running?<\/p>\n \u201cIf they have got a strong power unit next year and the car\u2019s good, and you have to say they\u2019ve recovered their direction towards the end of the season, then there\u2019s no reason for him to leave, in an environment he\u2019s the number one driver unchallenged, but we will see.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karun Chandhok has revealed Red Bull are \u201cnervous\u201d about Max Verstappen\u2019s future in F1. Verstappen saw his four-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,825,806,805,803,804,946,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-359321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-max-verstappen","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-red-bull-racing","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}