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Max Verstappen will strive to win back the F1 drivers’ title in 2026, but his hopes will hinge heavily on how competitive the first Red Bull Powertrains engine proves to be.
The Dutchman saw his dominance come to an end in 2025, as he fell just two points shy of a fifth consecutive crown. McLaren ace Lando Norris held on to pip Verstappen and win the F1 drivers’ championship for the first time, despite the latter securing the most wins and poles.
Verstappen never led the drivers’ standings in 2025, marking the first time he failed to do so throughout a season since 2020. Yet the 28-year-old ended last term with eight Grand Prix wins and eight pole positions, as Red Bull continued to develop their car deep into the term.
Red Bull risked their 2025 development plan impacting their 2026 car, as team boss Laurent Mekies strived to guide the Milton Keynes squad away from their regression under Christian Horner. Mekies did not believe it was in Red Bull’s interests to prioritise 2026 like their rivals.
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Ferrari stopped the development of their 2025 car last April, and McLaren made the 2026 F1 regulations their priority last July. Most teams focused on the new rules from an early stage, as F1 has changed its engine, aero, chassis and tyre regulations in the biggest overhaul ever.
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Red Bull Racing also face the additional challenge of becoming an engine constructor for the first time in 2026, as Honda initially elected to leave F1 before agreeing to be Aston Martin’s factory partner. Horner established Red Bull Powertrains whilst still in charge of the F1 team.
Jan Lammers believes Red Bull will thus be “very happy” if they are just among the top three teams in 2026, as they start to understand their engine. But the former F1 star and Le Mans winner questions whether Verstappen would agree with Red Bull settling for not being first.
“I think Red Bull would be very happy if they could immediately run in the top six,” Lammers told RacingNews365. “So, if they can get into that top three [teams], I think they’ll consider that a good start. I don’t know where Max has set that criterion for himself.”
Red Bull are still working on improvements for their first-ever in-house F1 engine
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The debut Red Bull Powertrains engine will power the main Red Bull Racing squad and sister team Racing Bulls in 2026. Horner also secured Red Bull a technical partnership with Ford to gain the US giant’s help with hybrid technologies whilst developing their engine programme.
Creating an F1 engine for the start of a new regulatory era created a huge challenge for Red Bull, who went from always being an engine customer team to building a power unit with a 50/50 electrical/combustion energy share that also now runs on advanced sustainable fuels.
Red Bull hired hordes of engine technicians from Mercedes over the past few years to boost the chances that their programme proves to be a success. Their arrivals have also helped to fuel fears among rival F1 teams that Red Bull found a loophole in the 2026 F1 engine rules.
The early signs concerning the reliability of the RBPT DM01 unit from last week’s Barcelona shakedown test were positive. But Red Bull are still trying to improve the drivability of their 2026 engine, after noticing a few areas to improve during the first pre-season test of 2026.
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