Red Bull surrender F1 title fight as Laurent Mekies confirms 2027 switch

Red Bull

Red Bull surrender F1 title fight as Laurent Mekies confirms 2027 switch

Verstappen is desperate to drive a car capable of winning championships again

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Thursday 30 July 2026 22:26

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Red Bull F1 boss Laurent Mekies has said that his Red Bull team will not be fighting for the title as hard as they did in 2025, confirming a switch to focus more on 2027 after the summer break.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit seem to have just about hit form after a terrible start to the 2026 season, with star driver Max Verstappen having claimed three podiums from the last four grands prix.

Verstappen is still yet to win a race, however, and his team's inability to provide him with a championship-challenging car has led to speculation surrounding his long-term future with Red Bull.

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For now, however, the team are focusing on trying to secure some race victories between now and the end of the 2026 season.

Verstappen is now 110 points behind championship leader Antonelli, and a fight for the title looks a long way off. But he was over 100 points off the top of the championship at this stage last year, before mounting a stunning comeback and finishing just two points behind champion Lando Norris.

However, Mekies has admitted heading into the summer break that Red Bull fought hard to continue developing the car until the very end in 2025 to give Verstappen a chance, something he does not intend to do in 2026.

Sorry Verstappen fans, it looks like a repeat of last year's title charge is off the cards at Red Bull this season.

Red Bull focusing on 2027

F1 teams who are struggling in a particular season often start looking ahead to the next, where opportunities to win races and become a championship-contending outfit might be more forthcoming.

Williams team principal James Vowles recently confirmed that his struggling Grove-based outfit will have to shift their attention to 2027 soon in order to give them the best chance of rediscovering their form, and Mekies has now suggested this could be the case in the remainder of Red Bull's 2026 season as well.

"We’re in a completely different situation to last year, when we were in the thick of a race to catch up and were in contention for the title right until the end," Mekies told De Telegraaf.

"So you won’t see us pushing as hard this season as we did back then. After the summer break, most of our attention will shift to next year’s car; I think that’s perfectly normal.

"There will still be updates this year, but fewer than we introduced in 2025."

When asked if Verstappen can win a grand prix in 2026, Mekies replied: "He certainly can! Look, if you’re three-tenths of a second slower than the front of the field, that’s normally quite a challenge. But in Austria, for example, we were much closer, and in Hungary it was only Norris whose pace we couldn’t match during the race.

"Only time will tell whether we can close the gap quickly. And the situation is different from last year, because we’ll be focusing on the future sooner.

"So compared to the start of this year, we’ve already made up a significant part of the gap. And it wasn’t exactly a surprise that there was a gap, was it? Not only because we continued to develop intensively for a long time last year, but you mustn’t underestimate the challenge of integrating our own engine either. We’re paying the price for that now. But in the long term, it will more than pay for itself.

"Yes, the first half of the season was a bit of a rollercoaster, but we’re heading in the right direction and have been fighting for podium places in the last four races."

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Written by

Sam Cook - Digital Journalist

Sam Cook is a talented young sports journalist and social media professional who now specialises in Formula 1, having previously worked as a football journalist and a local news reporter for a variety of different brands.

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F1 Red Bull Max Verstappen Laurent Mekies