10/08/2025 08:20
Max Verstappen insists there is still an "opportunity to learn" at
Red Bull over the remainder of the F1 season, despite being
realistically out of the running for either championship. The
Dutchman, who recently committed his immediate future to the team,
believes that although F1 ushers in a new era of power unit and
chassis regulations at the end of the season, there will still be
things the six-time constructors' champions can establish this
campaign to implement in the next. It remains unclear if Verstappen
will stay with Red Bull through to the end of his contract in 2028,
but the four-time F1 drivers' champion appears focused on building
into the next generation of cars with his current employer. He sits
97 points behind the drivers' championship leader, Oscar Piastri,
with 10 rounds to run, and Red Bull is a distant fourth in the
constructors' standings, but the 27-year-old is seemingly no less
motivated than he otherwise might be. When asked for his opinion on
the competitive landscape of F1 over the rest of the campaign,
Verstappen dismissed a widely-held notion that the back-end of the
year will be of no help for 2026 and beyond. "No one really knows
for next year where they will be at," the 65-time grand prix winner
told media, including RacingNews365 . "For us this year, I think
realistically, it's going to be very difficult to fight McLaren.
"It's already difficult enough to fight with Ferrari and Mercedes,
but I think there's still a lot of opportunity to learn more about
the car and the behaviour of the car, because... I know that the
cars will be different next year, [but] there are still things that
you can take out of this year and also implement for the next
year." 'We cannot just bin it off' In spite of the relatively bleak
situation he and the Milton Keynes squad find themselves in with
regard to the championship fights, Verstappen maintains they cannot
"bin it off" entirely and focus solely on next year. "There's still
a lot to learn also this year," the Red Bull driver said. "And the
car that has to be built for next year, of course, that is fully
underway, but the engineering side of things, there is still a lot
that we can learn this year. "So, you cannot just say, 'Okay, we're
not winning this year, the championship, so we just bin it off
completely.' "Like I said before, there are always things that you
can take from this year to next year."
