Why Red Bull's short-term collapse seems imminent

Red Bull's 2025 F1 season ended with a bang as Max Verstappen clinched what would be his 8th win of the year. The race in Abu Dhabi also ended what was a 4-year run of championships for the team.

It all began in 2021 when Max Verstappen clinched the title on the last lap of the season. He ended a 7-year wait for Red Bull as well with that title triumph. Since then, the team has clinched at least one title every year.

The 2025 F1 season, however, was one where the team did not take home any silverware. Not only that, going into the 2026 F1 season, it does appear that Red Bull is staring at an imminent collapse.

The Dream Team is disbanded

To begin with, the combination that worked like a charm and brought Red Bull all this success in all these years is now gone. Christian Horner has been pushed out, and Rob Marshall has left, as have the likes of Adrian Newey, Jonathan Wheatley, and others, including Helmut Marko.

The last time Red Bull went a season without winning the championship was in 2014, the one thing it had going for it was the fact that the DNA was still there. The people who took the team to the top and knew how to take it there were still a part of the team.

They had to cover major ground for sure against Mercedes, but they did accomplish it. This time around, the core DNA of Red Bull is not there anymore. It's a team led by Laurent Mekies, and there are far too many uncertainties with his leadership, including a lack of experience.

Can he recapture all of what has been lost in just one winter? The answer might be no.

The board has taken over

One of the keys to Red Bull's prolonged success in F1 and how a drinks company dominated the sport comes down to the fact that Dietrich Mateschitz was the single point of contact for the team, and the operation was not answerable to a board. Christian Horner was the man who was the brains behind the operation, and he had Helmut Marko, who would sign off on everything.

Right now, it does appear that Oliver Mintzlaff is the man who has taken over the operation, and in essence, he has dissolved a lot of the organizational chain. Now, not only Laurent Mekies but also other key personnel report to him directly, and hence, he would be the one making the calls.

The problem with such a structure is that a board does not have experience in running an F1 operation. It doesn't know how much time it takes for a team to be successful.

We've seen similar things with Alpine in the past, where the board's involvement in 2023 started a chain reaction that pushed out Otmar Szafneur and kick-started the team's drop to the bottom.

Ferrari has had a similar story, as the team has been plagued by regular board interference. Whether the Red Bull board would be more patient in how it treats the F1 team is going to be a big question mark, especially since we have precedent for the contrary.

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The power unit program won't be an instant hit

Another issue with the board is that many questions and investments made by the previous regime are now going to be scrutinized. The biggest of them all will be the power unit program. A power unit program made all the sense in the world in 2021 when Red Bull once again found itself in a situation where it needed someone to supply a good engine.

The current Red Bull board has not faced that reality. On the contrary, they're looking at the last two championships, and McLaren is sourcing power units from Mercedes while winning titles. The RBPT is not going to be an overnight success, and no one should expect such a thing. It is at that point that the board might question whether such an investment even makes sense.

During times of success, there aren't many who complain or question anything. It is often during times of struggle that questions are asked, and even panic sets in. The 2026 F1 season is going to have a lot of that for the Austrian team.

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Christian Horner's impending return and potential resource drain from Red Bull

It's a bit of an open secret at the moment that the former Red Bull boss is going to make his way back to the grid in some capacity, and he's going to make that happen by next season. There is another open secret that within Milton Keynes, there are many "Horner Loyalists" who were not happy with how the team handled his departure.

If Horner returns to any team, there is a possibility that he will bring the band together and look to hire several personnel from his former side.

The Austrian squad is already looking deprived of resources, and when Horner rejoins the F1 grid, the team might need to brace itself for another impact.

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Over-reliance on an impatient Max Verstappen

Arguably, the biggest vulnerability for Red Bull is that the team's over-reliance on Max Verstappen has proven to be a boon in terms of the success it has achieved with him. The coin's other side, however, is the complete lack of patience that the Dutch driver has with an underperforming package.

In short, if the package does not deliver in 2026 and if the team takes time to restore its bearings to return to being a title contender, Verstappen is not going to stick around with Red Bull.

To make things worse, the team's formula of having cars that only Max Verstappen can extract something meaningful from would show its ugly head if the Dutch driver is not there to drive that machinery. If Verstappen jumps ship at the end of 2026, that's the biggest blow to the Austrian team.

At the time of writing, looking at the potential trajectories of different teams, it's not implausible.

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Conclusion

Red Bull is currently a team that has lost the DNA that brought it to the top of the ladder. With far too many questions surrounding the squad, coupled with inexperience, a storm seems to be brewing for a team that redefined the sport.

Whether it can hold its ground and return to the top would be worth keeping an eye on. For now, though, it does appear that a short-term decline for the team is imminent.

Edited by Riddhiman Sarkar