Despite not leading the championship this season, Max Verstappen has cemented himself as the best driver on the grid through his impressive performances in sub-optimal machinery, but Red Bull insider Matt Majendie thinks the best is yet to come from the Dutchman.
Coming off the back of four consecutive world championships, Verstappen and Red Bull have suffered from a plateau in performance this season with the RB21 and the emergence of McLaren’s superiority with their MCL39.
He has been on the back foot for the majority of the 2025 season, but there have been certain tracks which have suited the strong points of the RB21, such as the recent rounds at Monza and Baku.
| Position | Drivers’ Championship | Points |
| 1 |
Oscar Piastri |
324 |
| 2 |
Lando Norris |
299 |
| 3 |
Max Verstappen |
255 |
| 4 |
George Russell |
212 |
| 5 |
Charles Leclerc |
165 |
Recent back-to-back wins at low downforce circuits potentially point to Verstappen becoming a title contender in the final rounds of the campaign, if Red Bull’s current car can show that it can adapt to the higher downforce circuits on the F1 calendar like the upcoming round in Singapore.
Matt Majendie thinks Max Verstappen’s ‘capacity’ will help him with F1’s new 2026 regulations
Just like he has the ability to withdraw the maximum out of any car he drives, many people have identified Verstappen’s heightened “mental capacity” during racing conditions, including his fellow F1 rivals.
Speaking on a recent episode of The Inside Track podcast, Red Bull insider Matt Majendie believes this is one of the traits that will help the four-time world champion gain an advantage over his rivals when the grid resets upon the introduction of F1’s new 2026 regulations.
“It’s interesting to think about how this would affect Max Verstappen, these rule changes for next season,” Majendie started. “The reality is it’s the same for all 20 drivers or 22, as it’ll be, because we’ve got Cadillac coming in as a new team.
“They’re bringing in Checo Perez, Verstappen’s old teammate and Valtteri Bottas. So, 22 drivers, it’s going to affect everyone in the same way.
“The differences I think I see, and by being in the engineering office, sometimes during these races, is hearing how much information Verstappen is able to impart, how much stuff he observes while so much stuff is going on in the cockpit.
“So many twiddles of his dials and changing of settings, et cetera. The fact that there might be even more of that, I think it might actually suit him. He’s just got so much capacity to do other things.
“He’s such an innately quick driver, a natural driver that, actually, I think he’ll have more headspace than some. Maybe for a rookie, that might be harder to comprehend something like this.”
As revealed by Verstappen’s performance coach, Bradley Scanes, the trait was picked up during Jos Verstappen’s rigorous karting lessons and can be attributed to one of the reasons he is now a four-time world champion.
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Max Verstappen has been scratching his itch for racing through competing in GT3 categories
Another one of the Red Bull driver’s traits that makes him such a formidable driver is the vast amounts of extracurricular racing he takes part in away from the F1 calendar.
Verstappen recently competed in his first official GT3 race at the weekend, and is an avid sim-racer as well.
The 28-year-old received a lot of plaudits for his venture on the famous Nurburgring circuit as he and his co-driver Chris Lulham were the overall winners of the race after starting from third place.
Verstappen looked like a veteran on the Nordschleife, with past winners on the circuit highlighting how impressive it was watching the F1 driver weave through traffic.
His recent debuts at the circuit are just the first step in Verstappen entering the prestigious Nurburgring 24 Hour race next June.
The race has been on the bucket list of the four-time world champion for a while now, and he has shown that he is clearly capable of competing with the very best in the category.