The'former driver assures: "Max Verstappen is ready to leave Red Bull"

Max Verstappen will not accept another season without a title and will leave at the end of the year if Red Bull does not provide him with a car to win the championship in 2026: that is the opinion of former Formula 1 driver Johnny Herbert, who in an interview with RacingNews365 explained why he believes the Dutch champion will decide his future right away in the coming months.

“Verstappen will not stay at Red Bull to finish second again – Herbert said.

Basically, it will all depend on the car he starts the season with: he will want to see if it will be the fastest or one of the fastest. He knows he is the fastest driver, and he will think: what will help me in the next two years to become world champion again? ”.

“The only way to succeed is to give him a car he can compete with. If Red Bull can’t do that, then he will immediately look elsewhere, because that is what great champions do. He is not there to finish second”.

“His fundamental mentality is to win, and when he doesn&#8217t win he gets very annoyed. For Lewis Hamilton it is the same, for Charles Leclerc it is the same, for George Russell it is the same. They are competitive animals, like all sportsmen”.

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The tests in Barcelona were positive for Verstappen, who commented on his first laps as follows: “So much work has been put into this power unit in recent years and to see it then fitted to the car and, on the first day, immediately doing so many laps was fantastic. Everything is still a work in progress, but we are off to a pretty good start. We need time to understand the engine and make set-up changes, you have to try to put in as many laps as possible and try as many things as possible during the test days”.