Verstappen relishing Red Bull rebuild after wake-up call

Max Verstappen is relishing the opportunity to help rebuild Red Bull in 2025 following its alarming mid-season slump. 

Although he claimed a fourth straight F1 drivers' world championship, this was mainly built on his form in the first 10 races, where he won seven times.

Across the remaining 14 events, Verstappen only won twice as Lando Norris threatened to steal his world title as the RB20 suffered an extraordinary drop in form mid-season, and never truly recovering to the highs of the start of the season. 

The problems continue to run deep with the team not getting fully on top of them, but as the Dutchman tells RacingNews365 in an exclusive interview, the challenge is one he is up for.

"I am not expecting us to go into next season as the favourite, but that's a good challenge, I like it," said Verstappen.

"We went into the 2024 season as favourites and maybe it is good for us as a team, like a little wake-up call like: 'Come on guys, we have to be on it', and it is a nice challenge to try and be back on top, because I think we're still not quick, but we are getting there and sometimes are able to win again.

"That is at least possible at the moment, and it is a good challenge over the winter to push on, learn from the mistakes, learn from what we learned in the season and how to optimise the car and find more performance.

"The car is getting better, it is still not fixed but we are getting on top of those things, and I'm sure that if we fully nail our issues, we can actually unlock a lot more performance out of the car.

"I don't really think about [becoming a five-time champion] too much, I just want to enjoy it, see where we are in the beginning of the year and trust the team.

"They are going flat out at it, I gave my feedback and they know what I want from a car, and hopefully we can make it work."

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Max Verstappen exclusive interview

Verstappen's attention was also drawn towards the 2026 rules reset coming into force, with the technical regulations permitting active aero. 

Teams will be allowed to work on their new designs from January 1st 2025, setting up a situation of potentially sacrificing the '25 machine to focus on the new car.

But Verstappen is clear that he wants Red Bull to continue focusing on its 2025 RB21 challenger.

"In the background is 2026, and the rules are not even still fully clear, they kept changing a bit so you cannot fully commit to 2026 anyway, you still have to look at 2025," he says.

"You cannot just say we will forget about next year and go all in on 2026 because you don't know what is happening in 2026 with bits still changing on the car. 

"2025 is still a very important year and we want to do well."