Former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe has praised Red Bull for its decision to pursue performance at the end of 2025, despite its slow start to the new year.<\/p>\n
Red Bull opted to continue the investment in its car last year as it closed down the gap to leaders McLaren.<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen narrowly missed out on a fifth F1 title by two points as Lando Norris held on to seal his maiden championship.<\/p>\n
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has admitted Red Bull is paying the price for the development decision this year, having endured a highly challenging opening three rounds to the season.<\/p>\n
But Hinchcliffe has insisted it was the right call for the team to make.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it,\u201d Hinchcliffe told the F1 Nation podcast. \u201cIt was the right call.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWith everything changing in 2026, you just have no idea where you’re going to stack up.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if you dedicate all your resources to it – look at Williams as an example.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in 2025 they still had a shot. It’s so difficult to have a shot, to be in a position to fight for a championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you even have a remote chance to do it, you have to go for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I love that. Laurent said that was the attitude within the team, nobody wanted to give up, everybody thought it was still possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came within two points of getting it done. It nearly, really paid off for them, even if you pay a little bit of the price in 2026, there were just so many question marks around it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen was as far as 104 points behind the championship lead at the mid-point of the campaign before the car took considerable steps forward.<\/p>\n
While it installed a sense of motivation inside Red Bull, Hinchcliffe asserted it was a positive development for fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they did the right thing,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom our seats, it made the end of 2025 way more exciting.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo selfishly, it was good for us and good for the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut from a team standpoint, it was the right call, because those opportunities can be fleeting and you\u2019ve got to jump at them when you can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe has praised Red Bull for its decision to pursue performance at the end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-606085","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-daniel-ricciardo","11":"tag-f1-calendar","12":"tag-f1-live","13":"tag-f1-results","14":"tag-f1-standings","15":"tag-ferrari","16":"tag-formula-1","17":"tag-lewis-hamilton","18":"tag-max-verstappen","19":"tag-motor","20":"tag-motor-sports","21":"tag-motorsport","22":"tag-motosport","23":"tag-motosports","24":"tag-racing","25":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606085","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=606085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}