In 2025, the Dutch driver was able to trigger an exit if he was outside the top three in the drivers\u2019 championship by the summer break. This time he can leave if he is placed third or lower.<\/p>\n
It is understood Verstappen does not have to inform Red Bull of his decision until October, which means that unless the team manage a miraculous turnaround between now and the summer, the 28-year-old can begin exploring his options now, safe in the knowledge that he has plenty of time to make a final call.<\/p>\n
Because one thing is certain: there is no chance of Verstappen being in the top two by the summer break.<\/p>\n
Red Bull are struggling for form at the beginning of this new hybrid-electric era which Verstappen hates so much. The Dutchman\u2019s eighth place finish in Japan<\/a> on Sunday marked the first time in nine years that he had finished outside the top five three races running.<\/p>\n Surprisingly, the team\u2019s first-ever power unit, which was expected to be a handicap this year, does not appear to be the issue. Rather, it is their traditional strong point which has been found wanting. The car is 20kg overweight, while Verstappen was slower with the new aerodynamic package in Suzuka than team-mate Isack Hadjar was with the old one.<\/p>\n Ole Schack, Verstappen\u2019s Danish front-end mechanic and the only man at the team who has been ever-present for Red Bull since their first season in 2005, is the latest to hand in his resignation. With Schack reportedly unhappy with a change in the team\u2019s working atmosphere, it does feel that Red Bull are set for a long period of transition. Laurent Mekies had a blessed start as team principal last year but suddenly those years of stability under Christian Horner seem a long time ago. The Austrians are running things now.<\/p>\n Schack\u2019s resignation comes only weeks after chief designer Craig Skinner left the team and follows a winter of upheaval on the engineering side, with Verstappen losing three senior figures ahead of the 2026 season. Controls engineer Michael Manning, lead power unit engineer David Mart and performance engineer Tom Hart all left or are leaving. Only Gianpiero Lambiase, who was promoted to head of racing last year in an effort to tie him down long-term, remains from Verstappen\u2019s core team.<\/p>\n Verstappen\u2019s options are then…<\/p>\n Stay at Red Bull<\/p>\n Unlikely, for reasons mentioned above.<\/p>\n Move to Mercedes<\/p>\n Wolff is almost certain to make renewed efforts to bring Verstappen to Brackley for 2027. The tricky thing here is which of Russell or Kimi Antonelli the Dutchman would replace. Russell told Telegraph Sport last autumn, after signing his new one-year contract extension, that he had a clause in it guaranteeing he could stay for 2027<\/a> if certain conditions were met.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is something I haven\u2019t actually said publicly, but the deal is, if I\u2019m performing [in 2026], we have a specific clause that if I reach [a certain target], we will automatically renew for 2027,\u201d he said. \u201cSo my seat for 2027 is in my hands. So I\u2019m not being strung along here. We\u2019re not going to be in the same position as we were six months ago. If I perform, and I don\u2019t want to go into details, but if I perform, then 100 per cent I\u2019ll be staying.\u201d<\/p>\n It may be that that performance clause is actually Russell winning the title. But if it is, and if Russell achieves it, it would be very tricky for Wolff to get rid of him. That would, in turn, make Verstappen\u2019s arrival in 2027 less likely. The Dutchman would be far more reticent about joining a team with Russell in it, both professionally (he would have been at the team for five years) and personally (given their fractious history<\/a>). If Antonelli wins the title, signing Verstappen for 2027 might be more straightforward. Although we might not know who is going to win by October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2025, the Dutch driver was able to trigger an exit if he was outside the top three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[372,176973,59,9307,3006,85872,371,217,101,5438,6965,56,54,55,157732],"class_list":["post-504433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-formula-1","tag-formula-1-grand-prix","tag-gb","tag-george-russell","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mercedes-amg-petronas-f1-team","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-toto-wolff","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}