Max Verstappen offers a contrarian opinion on theories of teams giving up car development in 2025 to gain ground in 2026

As the 2025 season approaches, experts have reckoned that some teams might sacrifice 2025 for 2026, however, Max Verstappen has countered this claim. The Dutchman shared his first-hand experience that striking the right balance is important when a regulation change is lurking in the background.

Haas F1 famously sacked its 2021 campaign and finished the year with zero points. This helped the team focus all its manpower on the 2022 regulation reset and scored 37 points in the subsequent campaign.

However, not all teams go down this route. Reigning world champion Max Verstappen explained that in his 2021 campaign, Red Bull developed till the end of the season to turn the winds in their favor. Though Red Bull's investment paid as Verstappen won his first championship, it left a huge dent in the Austrian giant's cost cap. Despite this, the team was able to gather itself and prepare a beast for the 2022 season.

The Milton Keynes-based squad won 17 races, and Verstappen revealed how a good foundation is necessary for teams to excel in changing eras, as he said, via GPBlog:

"In '21 we also developed the car to the last, and '22 was also very good. If you just have a good car, have a good base and you don't do weird things, wrong things, then you are going to have a good season. With everything we went through last year, you can still be a world champion. So it just has to be a good base."

The 27-year-old is contracted with Red Bull till the end of the 2028 season.

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Red Bull breaks silence over speculations of Max Verstappen joining Aston Martin

Liam Lawson, Max Verstappen, and Christian Horner at the F1 75 Live - Press Conference - Source: Getty

While Max Verstappen is slated to continue with the Austrian giant, contracts being broken are nothing new in the F1 world. Moreover, over the winter break, Aston Martin was rumored to be interested in hiring the Dutchman for the 2026 season.

That too with a staggering $1 billion-plus contract to lure Verstappen away from Red Bull. Subsequently, team supremo, Christian Horner shared his thoughts over such a lucrative deal and said, via Formula 1:

"I know you guys [the media] have all got column inches to fill over a winter period, but a billion-pound driver, a billion dollars, it would be an eye-wateringly large amount of money. I think Max is very happy in the environment that he’s in. He’s grown up in the team, he has a great relationship with the team, the engineers, the technicians and everybody that he works with. It’s down to us to provide a competitive car and continue to give him the platform to be able to achieve the results that he has over the last almost 10 years.”

F1 teams will get the chance to run their 2025 challengers during the pre-season testing in Bahrain from February 26-28.