Why Verstappen and Hadjar urge Red Bull to "make all the mistakes now" for 2027

According to both Red Bull drivers, the final races of 2026 are ideal for experimenting and learning as much as possible for the next F1 season, when Red Bull wants to be fighting for the world title again

With seven or eight Formula 1 weekends remaining in 2026 – depending on the situation in the Middle East – Red Bull has just two objectives left: preventing 2026 from becoming the team’s first winless year since 2015 and, secondly, learning as much as possible ahead of next season.

Regarding the first objective, Verstappen has said on multiple occasions that Baku was theoretically Red Bull’s best chance due to the layout and because Mercedes could not yet count on its long-awaited upgrade, but learning for 2027 is arguably even more important according to the four-time world champion.

"We have to wait a little bit now in the coming races to see how our car is going to perform, which is probably also quite good for us, to see all these different kinds of tracks", Verstappen said.

"We’ll probably learn a lot over these coming races of what we need for next year, and what we want to do with the car.

"We’re not fighting for the championship anyway, so for us it’s a big learning curve. But, of course, the last few weekends have already been a lot better than the start of the season."

When Autosport asked team-mate Isack Hadjar about the main goal for the remainder of this year, he also points to the learning process for 2027. According to the driver who has ended the curse of Red Bull’s second seat, that even takes precedence over individual race results.

"It’s good. It should be eight races to the end and there’s no pressure. It’s not like we’re fighting for any championship. Now we have eight races to learn as much as we can," the Frenchman said.

"We have to try all the things, make all the mistakes now and do all the learning to arrive in 2027 ready to roll and start on high. That’s the target and that’s the spirit in the team. So now we go all in until the end and see what we can learn from it."

Verstappen has already revealed that he has ideas about "bigger changes" for Red Bull’s 2027 car, things that need to be adjusted in order to become more competitive again and to prevent the "car degradation" from returning next year.

Those are all changes that can no longer be made to the RB22 during the current campaign, partly related to the limitations of the current chassis and partly because of the budget cap.

The Baku package was Red Bull’s final significant upgrade for this year’s challenger, although Verstappen has expressed his satisfaction with it.

"That was a decent step, yeah," the Dutchman said. "But for next year, if we really want to compete, we need to make a much bigger step. And that applies to everything: the car, the power unit, everything."

When it was pointed out that Red Bull cannot do much to the power unit without an ADUO token, Verstappen reacted: "That’s true, but of course we can still fine-tune things."

When Hadjar was asked whether, like Verstappen, he already had certain ideas about what needs to be structurally different for the RB23, he concluded with a telling smile: "Yes, absolutely. And we are mostly aligned on those things."

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- The Autosport.com Team

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