Red Bull Racing's calm before their 2026 storm?

Much ink has been spilled about the situation within Red Bull Racing in the final stage of Horner's reign, with power struggles between different camps.

All that goes back to the Briton's sexting scandal from early 2024, which ignited a civil war with team Verstappen, Max, Jos, and Helmut Marko; the corporate team in Austria; and the team boss and CEO, who was backed at the time by the Thai shareholder, Chalerm Yoovidhya.

Since then, major figures have left Red Bull Racing, namely Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey, Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatley, and Chief Designer Rob Marshall, the latter being the man behind the current success of McLaren.

With Mekies at the helm now, the situation seems to have calmed down in Milton Keynes, but former Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya is not so sure that will remain the case in the future, with 2026 being the season when Red Bull, for the first time in almost 20 years, produce a car not conceived inside Newey's head.

This will be more of a challenge given the sweeping regulation changes, not to mention the fact that Red Bull Racing will be producing their own power unit for the first time.

"I think this could be the calm before the storm," Montoya said. "Next year is going to be the first car not designed by Adrian Newey.

"You don't have the Honda; you have a different power unit, your own power unit. It could be quite good. It could surprise everybody.

"But at the same time, it could create a lot of turmoil inside the team when things are not progressing the way they need to. Especially if Red Bull Austria is more involved.

"If you have non-racing people making decisions, it is even harder," the Columbian noted. "Sometimes when non-racing people get involved, they think an F1 team is like a normal company that you can just flip around, and things are going to work.

"It doesn't work that way. It's going to be interesting. They have a lot of experience. They have a lot of really good people.

"But for me, what would be interesting is if they struggle at the beginning of the year and Max decides to leave and then they turn it around. That could be a twist.

"They have lost a whole lot of leadership in so many different areas," Montoya went on. "The problem with those changes is it takes a couple of years for them to be effective.

"All the existing processes would still be in place, but the new people, as they come in, start putting in new implementations.

"And things start flowing differently. And next season is going to be a little different and a little faster because you're changing the rules completely. All your philosophies go into a trash can."

Red Bull Racing, like other teams, are venturing into the unknown with the new regulations, but the energy drinks outfit may struggle more given the recent management changes.

Montoya continued: "You want the car to behave in a certain way, but the size of the car is different, the weight of the car is different, the power unit is different, everything is different. And I think that's where it can get quite kind of tricky, and that's hopefully where Austria doesn't fully get involved.

"They have taken a bunch of people from Mercedes, from Ferrari and have really good personnel working on the engine program.

"They might surprise everybody," he predicted. "But even if they think they're very good, once you put it in the car, you're going to have issues.

"Blending everything together is going to take time. So hopefully everybody's patient, and if they are patient enough, they'll have a pretty good car.

"The good thing for me is that Newey was there a long time, and he had really good people underneath him who learned a lot from him.

"So, whether you like it or not, Newey will still have a lot of influence on how they see the car and how it is," Montoya concluded.

(Quotes from Jackpot City Casino)