verstappen's best result of 2026 is a second place
max verstappen dragged the red bull to P2 in austria, he's still seventh in the championship, and his contract has an exit clause.
max verstappen finished second at the red bull ring on sunday, 1.6 seconds behind george russell. for me it was the drive of the race. it was also his best result of the season, which tells you how red bull’s 2026 is going.
he crashed at turn 9 on his last lap in Q3 and started P5. by the end of lap 2 he’d passed antonelli and leclerc. then he had two separate fights with lewis hamilton (the first one ended with max in the gravel at turn 6, which the stewards decided was fine) before finally taking second. red bull left him out five laps longer than russell at the last stops, he came out about ten seconds behind with 22 laps to go, and he got it down to 1.6. did we expect anything less?
here is the dutch lion’s season so far: P6, DNF, P8, P5, P3, DNF, P4, P2. no wins and no poles (mercedes has all eight of those). he has won the austrian grand prix four times, more than anyone, and this year a second place there felt like a miracle. he’s seventh in the championship on 73 points, 98 behind antonelli.
which is where the contract comes in. his manager raymond vermeulen confirmed last month that the deal, which runs to 2028, has exit clauses in it. the reported trigger is being outside the top two at the summer break. russell is second, 58 points ahead of him, and there are 83 points available before the break. so unless max wins everything while russell forgets how to drive, he’s free to leave if he wants to.
but leave for where? mercedes already has a 19-year-old leading the championship and doesn’t need him. ferrari has hamilton winning races and leclerc. aston martin has adrian newey and one point (it hurts to type that). that leaves mclaren, which has already signed his race engineer gianpiero lambiase for a senior job and keeps coming up in the rumours.
i respect max too much to wish the mclaren pit wall on him. this is the team that hasn’t won a grand prix this year and spent 2025 turning a dominant car into a three-way title fight. vermeulen also said they want max to finish his career at red bull, and i believe that more than i believe the rumours. my guess is he stays, and the clause is there to scare red bull into building a faster car.
silverstone is this weekend and it’s a sprint, so there are 33 points on the table. prediction: max gets on the podium in one of the two races and it changes nothing. see you after the weekend.