Red Bull warned 2026 failure could trigger bombshell Max Verstappen exit

Former F1 driver Johnny Herbert has warned Red Bull that not being the quickest team in the upcoming 2026 season could trigger Max Verstappen’s departure.

The past two seasons have seen Verstappen linked with an exit from Red Bull, with talks held with Mercedes during the first half of 2025. Ultimately, he expressed his loyalty to the Austrian outfit for this year, as F1 enters a new power unit regulation cycle.

For Red Bull, this also marks the start of life as its own powertrain supplier, representing the biggest challenge in the history of the Milton Keynes-based team.

While its engine looked promising during the Barcelona shakedown test, it remains to be seen how competitive it will be. Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has already acknowledged that Verstappen is taking a risk by sticking with the team, given the scale of the task it faces.

As highlighted by Herbert, the four-time world champion is not in F1 to “finish second”; the Dutchman wants to be on top and secure more world titles.

For that to happen, he needs one of the best — if not the best — cars on the grid, putting pressure on Red Bull to deliver and retain the 28-year-old beyond 2026.

Discussing what Red Bull must do this year to keep Verstappen, Herbert told RacingNews365 at Formula E's Miami E-Prix: "Go faster than all the others, very clearly, because he knows how the team works. 

"But fundamentally, it’s all going to come down to the car you start the season with — whether it’s the quickest out of the box, one of the quickest, or very, very close. It might even alternate from track to track.

"That’s where, as a racing driver, you’re always thinking: what’s going to benefit me over the next couple of years to win my next world championship? The only way they’re going to achieve that is by giving him a car he can challenge with. But challenging is one thing — you’ve got to beat the likes of, say, Mercedes, for example.

"If they don’t, then he’s going to look elsewhere, because that’s what racing drivers do. He’s not there to finish second. His core mentality is to win, and when he doesn’t win, he gets very annoyed. 

"But Lewis [Hamilton] is the same. Charles [Leclerc] is the same. George [Russell] is the same. All the drivers here in Formula E are exactly the same. They’re competitive animals, like all sportspeople are. Ultimately, it comes down to what they supply."