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."
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'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."
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