Former F1 driver Christijan Albers reckons Red Bull should basically write off the rest of 2026 and throw everything at building Max Verstappen a championship-winning machine for 2027 instead. It's pretty brutal advice, but hear him out. Red Bull have climbed back to consistent podium contenders in the second half of 2026, but it's crystal clear that Verstappen won't be winning the drivers' title this year. So why not pivot completely and make the most of what could be their biggest advantage right now?

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The thing is, Red Bull's team principal Laurent Mekies already admitted they're paying the price for their mega aggressive development push during 2025 when they were chasing Verstappen's late title charge. They split their resources between last year and this year, and it wrecked the 2026 car's performance early on. But here's the kicker, and where Albers sees the opportunity: because of how the FIA doles out wind tunnel time based on the previous year's results, Red Bull actually got handed a gift this season.

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Red Bull finished 2025 third in the constructors' championship, which got them 256 wind tunnel runs and 1,600 computer simulations, or 80 percent of the baseline allocation. Then after the Austrian Grand Prix, the FIA reshuffled everything again, and because Red Bull dropped to fourth in the standings, their allocations actually went up slightly. Albers is saying this precious extra wind tunnel time needs to go into one focused push for 2027, not getting sprayed across ongoing 2026 development.

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In his column, Albers pointed out that Red Bull will likely make the switch sooner than Ferrari because Lewis Hamilton is still in the championship fight at Mercedes and can dream of an eighth title. But he reckons Red Bull will keep tweaking the current car just enough to learn from it, before properly committing to next year's challenge. The team showed they're capable of an absolutely fantastic mid-season rebuild back in 2025, so if they're smart about concentrating all that wind tunnel firepower into 2027, they could bounce back properly and fight for the crown again.

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