The news was expected<\/a> following the Belgian Grand Prix, after a clause in the Dutchman’s contract allowing him to leave the Milton Keynes-based squad became null and void.<\/p>\nThe provision, which essentially expired after the race at Spa-Francorchamps, could have seen the four-time F1 drivers’ champion released early from his contract, which runs until 2028, to seek pastures new next year.<\/p>\n
If Verstappen found himself outside the top three in the F1 drivers’ standings at the summer break, that clause could have been triggered.<\/p>\n
However, with the 27-year-old 28 points clear of George Russell in fourth place in the standings, regardless of results at the Hungarian Grand Prix, that escape route cannot be activated.<\/p>\n
As such, Marko announced Verstappen will now stay put for the new campaign, which will see F1 usher in a brand new era of regulations.<\/p>\n
“Yes, I can confirm that Max Verstappen will drive for Red Bull in 2026,” the Austrian told Sport.De.<\/p>\n
The development brings weeks of speculation over the 65-time grand prix winner’s F1 future to a close, with his pathway to Mercedes now blocked until 2027 at the earliest.<\/p>\n
Verstappen has been closely linked to the Brackley team and has been engaged in talks with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff over joining the eight-time constructors’ champions.<\/p>\n
Although the chances of that happening for 2026 were always slim, the 53-year-old made it clear over the weekend in the Ardennes Forest that he wanted to continue with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli for now.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Verstappen joining forces with Wolff remains a very real possibility for the season after. RacingNews365 understands there to be a further clause in his contract that can be activated if he is outside the top two in the F1 drivers’ championship next summer.<\/p>\n
With the uncertainty of the new rules slate, if Red Bull cannot produce a competitive car in its first season as a power unit manufacturer, Verstappen may opt to leave for a home he feels can help deliver him more championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko has confirmed that Max Verstappen will stay at the team for the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,2476,578,2479,2477,2480,2478,930,576,577,932,1885,2475,582,82],"class_list":["post-30141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}