Max Verstappen isn’t pretending he can predict 2026. He’s not even trying. As Formula 1 rips up its technical playbook again, the four-time World Champion says the only sensible plan is to turn up, feel what the car does, and adapt faster than everyone else.
“You know that even heading into that season, right? So it’s not like it comes as a shock,” Verstappen told Bloomberg, speaking with the same calm that’s defined his run through the ground-effect era. “Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have a bit of a change.”
Change is coming whether he fancies it or not. The 2026 regulations push F1 away from the heavy ground-effect machinery and toward slimmer, lighter cars that rely more on over-body aero – with active wings to balance performance on the fly. On the power side, the hybrids shift toward a near 50/50 split between electric and combustion power. That’s a hard reset of the competitive order, not a gentle nudge.
Red Bull entered the last big regulation change perfectly and then ruled it, with Verstappen setting the tone from 2022 onward. Even 2025’s mid-season wobble felt like a blip from a team that knows how to land on its feet. But the Dutchman isn’t leaning on history. He’s leaning on adaptability.
“I honestly have no idea,” he said when asked how well the new rules might suit Red Bull. “I haven’t even done that many laps in the simulator. I’ll just see what happens when I sit in the car. What is always very important as a driver is that you can adapt quickly to the situation that you’re in… because the cars will evolve very quickly.”
If that sounds like stock racer talk, Verstappen’s earned the right to keep it simple. He’s shown across categories that he can recalibrate on the fly — even nipping off to win in the Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie during the past year — and he rarely gets dragged into the noise.
There’s plenty of noise around Red Bull’s power unit, now that Red Bull Powertrains becomes a full, in-house manufacturer. Rumours have swirled about clever interpretations of the new combustion parameters, with whispers of a compression-ratio grey area doing the paddock rounds. Ben Hodgkinson, RBPT’s technical director, has been adamant the design is legal heading into the FIA’s sit-down with manufacturers.
Verstappen, predictably, isn’t getting lost in the weeds. “It’s impossible to know,” he said of whether any grey-area gains might swing things. “Everyone is just trying everything they can. From my side, I have to focus on the driving; I’m not there to be the engine technician… At the end of the day, it’s something between the FIA and the engine manufacturers to sort out.”
What is clear is that the traditional pecking order may not survive contact with the 2026 regs. Active aero, a rebalanced hybrid system, and smaller cars will reward different strengths: energy deployment smarts, chassis efficiency across a wider operating window, and drivers who can adapt their style corner-to-corner as the car’s aero state changes. On paper, that should suit Verstappen’s high-fidelity feel and ruthless consistency. On paper, though, doesn’t count for much until the lights go out.
As for whether racing will be better, Verstappen isn’t making big promises. “It’s a bit too soon to say that it will be easier to pass. Everything is still unknown,” he said. He did allow himself one opinion: the smaller footprint should make the cars look better.
There’s a composure to his stance that’ll be familiar to anyone who’s watched him dismantle the last era: no big declarations, no sandbagging narratives, just a confidence that whatever he’s given, he’ll figure it out quicker than the rest. If 2026 proves to be the great reset many are hoping for, that quality might matter more than any CFD gain or last-minute engine trick.
Verstappen summed it up with a shrug. “I’m not too stressed about that, to be honest.” In a season built on moving targets, that might be the edge.
