Despite having a contract that runs until the end of 2028, Max Verstappen’s Formula 1 future has once again become one of the main talking points in the paddock in recent months.

Now that the regulation changes for 2027 and 2028 have been approved, Verstappen appears set to remain in F1 for longer, although the question remains with which team.

During the Spielberg race weekend, reports of “informal talks” with McLaren surfaced, although Verstappen said in his Dutch media session that he does not want to waste much energy on all the speculation.

“It doesn’t do anything for me and I don’t pay any attention to it,” he said. “These days it’s all very easy. With AI, you can Photoshop anything you want.”

Verstappen’s manager Raymond Vermeulen has repeatedly stated that the intention is to remain loyal to Red Bull, although he also told the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that Verstappen “was not born to race in the midfield”.

With Verstappen currently seventh in the championship, that is to some extent the reality, meaning the sporting picture needs to improve. Verstappen adds that everyone within Red Bull is aware of that.

Max Verstappen crashed out of qualifying at the Red Bull Ring

Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images

When asked whether he has certain targets in mind for the remainder of the season or specific things he wants to see from Red Bull in order to stay, he replied that those discussions have already taken place behind closed doors.

“They know, but I don’t need to talk too much about it.”

What more can Red Bull do under the budget cap?

The upgrade package in Austria is important in that respect. During Thursday’s media day in Spielberg, Verstappen even described it as “crucial” for the team to take a step forward.

After qualifying, he said his first impressions were cautiously positive, although further fine-tuning of the new parts is still required.

“Most of the upgrades worked well. There are a few things we still need to look at to see whether they can be improved. Overall, I think it was a bit better, although this is obviously a very short lap. That naturally means that the gaps are a bit smaller.

“We’re still behind, though, so we have to wait for the coming races to see what it looks like there.”

Laurent Mekies admits Red Bull is still learning about its upgrades

Photo by: Erik Junius

Team principal Laurent Mekies and technical director Pierre Wache have both said that Red Bull is still learning about the upgrade package, which also explains the complicated search for an acceptable car balance on Friday.

Everyone agrees on one thing: the Austria package alone is not enough; several more steps are required.

After a major package in Miami and another one in Spielberg, however, the question is how much more Red Bull can still do under the budget cap.

“There are still more things coming. There’s still plenty that can be done. Otherwise they’ll just have to spend less on catering,” Verstappen joked, referring to Red Bull’s budget cap breach over the 2021 F1 season.

Two months as a Buddhist in Tibet

Aside from outright performance – which is important for his future decision – Verstappen also believes he has suffered more than his fair share of bad luck this year.

In Australia, he crashed in qualifying in a way he could not explain. In Monaco, a power unit issue caused a retirement, while Red Bull has now admitted that a technical problem was responsible for his qualifying crash in Austria.

“Crazy things have been happening all year. That’s nothing new for me.”

“I think at the end of the year I’m going to Tibet. I’ll spend two months there to fully relax like a Buddhist,” the four-time world champion joked.

“Everything has been incredibly complicated this year with so many different things. You leave the pits and the car stops, things like that. Most of the time I just have to count to 10, or in fact to 100.”

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Cadillac might have endured a fraught Austrian Grand Prix Friday as reliability issues dented the American Formula 1 team’s progress, but Valtteri Bottas says that its gap to Aston Martin demonstrates that the new update package delivered the expected pace increase.

The GM brand had to contend with different issues either side of the garage; Sergio Perez struggled with restricted running due to an electrical problem in FP1 and FP2, which kept causing the car to shut down. Meanwhile, Bottas ended up dealing with a sparking – and later, burning – front floor tray, which was traced to a build error with his car, which caused the bib to drag against the floor.

Although Perez and Bottas both fell out in Q1 in qualifying, the two cars were almost a second clear of the lethargic Aston Martins; even though neither of the Cadillac drivers had been able to improve in their final quali laps, with Bottas stating that he lost time as he started his lap too close to his team-mate.

Cadillac’s range of updates included significant changes to the sidepods, along with a new floor which the Finn says has ensured that the car feels much more consistent.

“Looking at the gap to Aston, I think we can see that we’ve made the car quicker with the upgrades, so that’s good,” Bottas said. “There’s still a bit of a gap to the cars ahead, but it is step by step. 

“And I think there was a bit more in it today as well. I was in the last run a bit too close to Checo on that last lap, so there was probably a couple of tenths more.

“It seems that this weekend has been much more straightforward. You know, we’ve got these new-spec floors for this weekend, they seem much more consistent. With a clean lap I should have found a bit more time, so I’m a bit more confident at the moment.”

Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac

Photo by: Eric Le Galliot

Although raw pace is improving, Cadillac’s main rationale behind its update package was to improve its tyre degradation in races. This has been a continual source of difficulty for the team to manage, as the lack of downforce has been a contributing factor. 

Sunday’s race will provide the full test of the updated car’s capabilities in this area, particularly with thermal degradation expected to be high with the 50C-plus track temperatures expected at the Red Bull Ring.

“It’s really just a general load in all speeds. It’s just bringing a bit more downforce in the car, a little bit less sliding, which is going to help in the race as well,” Bottas added.

“So let’s see. Tomorrow is going to be a real test for the tyre deg with these temperatures. And also for us with the cooling, we know we’ve had some brake cooling issues. If we survive tomorrow, then that’s good news for the rest of the year.”
 
“We haven’t had that much running this weekend, so I’m sure we keep finding more in Silverstone. With analysis from today, from tomorrow, we’ll again learn something more.
 
“It’s definitely not given in this sport that once you put something in the car, that it’s faster. And so far, I think everything that we’ve put in the car has been better. So that’s really promising for the future.”

Cadillac’s updates

Outwardly, the biggest change to the MAC-26 lies around the sidepod area; the early-season version ran with a ramped upper surface, which blended into the undercut to feed the Coke bottle region (see above, drag icon left to see new spec)

The new sidepods have a much clearer undercut around the entire sidepod, which exposes much more of the floor edge and offers scope for the team to use more developments in the floor area. It also allows the air to take a cleaner path towards the top of the diffuser to increase its overall power.

Internal repackaging has allowed the team to rely less on the cooling louvres on the side of the engine cover, repositioning some of these to the top of the sidepod to extract heat from the radiator, condition that airflow, and manoeuvre it over the top of the sidepods. 

Although F1 is no longer at the whims of Venturi-tunnel ground-effect aero in 2026, it’s still incredibly important to get every single scrap of downforce possible from the floor. It’s not only the localised flow underneath the car that matters, but also how the top of the floor generates top-side pressure and how the rear of the car links the diffuser and the rear-wheel aero furniture to the rear wing to maximise rear-end downforce.

Therefore, changing the sidepods to suit a new floor arrangement is a significant part of the package as a whole, and thus is quite a significant undertaking given that parts internally may need to be reshuffled to fit this.

Additionally, the fin running along the top edge of the engine cover has also been augmented by a couple of stepped serrations, similar to those used by McLaren and Ferrari, to help clean up the airflow ahead of the rear wing. 

Interestingly, the team also moved away from its asymmetrical livery design, switching to a predominantly white car with black trim and gradient.

Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac

Photo by: Eric Le Galliot

Using the supertimes metric, which expresses a driver’s lap time as a percentage of the fastest set over a given weekend, Cadillac began the year 5.205% slower than Mercedes; as it stands so far in Austria, the team is now just 3.721% away and closing in on the likes of Williams and Haas. The scope of the team’s updates even prompted McLaren team boss Andrea Stella to label the MAC-26 as the “most significantly upgraded”.

Although Bottas was pleased with the progress, Perez was slightly more muted in his appraisal of the new parts – noting that he was underprepared for qualifying after his truncated Friday running.

“I think it’s really hard to compare, but everywhere has been a bit of a step forward,” Perez explained. “But with the altitude and this circuit being so different, I think Silverstone will give us a much better read.

“I think we seem to be finding not as big steps as we would like because the next position was still four tenths from us in such a small track. The gap is quite large.
 
“There is a lot to test, a lot to learn. So we went into qualifying a little bit blinded there. Of course we didn’t maximise our performance, but still I don’t think there were 4 tenths in it, which is what we needed for the next position. So still we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

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