Red Bull’s Max Verstappen reflects on car changes, Isack Hadjar and life as a father

His pre-season eye for F1’s new direction for 2026 perfectly sums up his activities.

He doesn’t go out of his way to make the powers that be in the sport squirm, but he won’t be anything but original. How you choose to receive it is up to you. This has been the four-time world champion’s modus operandi since he became the youngest F1 driver to start a race in Melbourne 11 years ago, aged just 17 years and 166 days.

Things were not always smooth sailing with Verstappen; His unrepentant aggression in wheel-to-wheel combat was a constant source of annoyance to his opponents in his younger days, regularly treading the tightrope of acceptability – but his level has only increased as his driving has matured.

Think 2025. Racing for a Red Bull Racing team that dropped teammate Liam Lawson for poor performance after just two races and then saw high-profile team boss Christian Horner leave the team mid-season after more than 20 years in charge, Verstappen was 104 points behind McLaren’s championship leader Oscar Piastri in 15 of last year’s 24 races; this was his chance to become the second driver to win five consecutive championships. Michael Schumacher (2000-04) was set to disappear as Red Bull faltered.

Verstappen came into the game in a statistically hopeless position, relishing his role as the new title instigator. He won six of the last nine races of the season. Piastri was usurped but the Australian’s teammate Lando Norris managed to edge Verstappen by just two points in the Abu Dhabi final; This would be his best championship.

He was characteristically forceful in pursuing the nearly impossible: “What a commanding position we would have over a car. [McLaren] “If it had, the championship would have been over a long time ago,” he said in Yas Marina – coming up short was an unusual result that, counterintuitively, gave him a satisfaction he had never felt before.

He turned out to be the sport’s fastest driver of the 2020s and arguably the weakest driver by the benchmark by which others are judged.

“It’s always better to win, but honestly, [2025 is] probably a better feeling than I’ve ever had [in 2024]” he said, agreeing with the suggestion that last season was his best yet.

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“I would say we were struggling for a year. Sometimes I hated the car, sometimes I loved it – it was a real roller coaster – but I was always trying to get the best out of it.”

Verstappen, 28, once an unlicensed, spotty rookie, is now mid-life in F1, on a curve skewed by Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso, 44, and Ferrari’s seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, 41.

When Verstappen first joined Red Bull Racing in 2016, Australian Daniel Ricciardo, then 27, was his teammate. While Verstappen was tough even then (he won his first race as a teammate that season in Barcelona), Ricciardo sees a driver who continues to improve.

“He’s at the point where he’s better now… he’s been on the walk many times, so he has an unconditional confidence and belief that he can achieve things even when it’s not expected of him,” Ricciardo told this reporter on the eve of Verstappen’s 200th race last year.

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“He’s also been in a zone for the last couple of years and because of how locked in he is. He works so calmly, coolly and confidently that that’s the most impressive thing right now. That’s something that motivates me, but ultimately it’s a mental thing for him to be so controlled and unaffected.”

Eight years after Ricciardo and Verstappen last shared the same garage, Red Bull continues to search for a teammate who can contribute to the team’s constructors’ title without becoming roadkill due to Verstappen’s unique talent.

French driver Isack Hadjar (21), who is in his second year, became Verstappen’s sixth teammate after Ricciardo; Yuki Tsunoda, who replaced Lawson at the beginning of the season last year, was sidelined because he could not keep up with him.

Hadjar’s task – Verstappen has taken 93 per cent of the team’s wins, 94 per cent of the team’s pole positions and 78 per cent of its podiums since Ricciardo’s departure – is huge and he was ahead of Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon and Sergio Perez even before Lawson and Tsunoda came and went.

Red Bull is expected to return to Melbourne this March with a new No. 2 driver, but only with Horner and long-time motorsport advisor and Verstappen confidant Dr. Returning without Helmut Marko and with a new power unit partner in Ford as the team becomes its own engine manufacturer only adds to the confusion and strengthens Verstappen’s claim as F1’s biggest difference maker.

The comfort he has surprisingly found from last year’s near-miss and life outside the cockpit (Verstappen became a father for the first time last year) offsets the fire that continues to smolder, igniting itself with the sounds of something grinding its gears.

“Teams are going through changes in general… it was refreshing, maybe it was needed,” he said of the new-look Red Bull for 2026.

“With Helmut… I’m already in touch with him about life. I’ve shared a lot of moments with him, so of course it will feel a little different in the garage. But you also have to look forward, right?

“A lot has changed from where I started to now. You try other challenges outside of Formula 1. That’s how I keep myself busy… I get myself excited here.”

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