Scott Gulbransen
Max Verstappen has called Formula 1’s 2026 regulations ” like playing Mario Kart,” declared them “fundamentally flawed,” and told anyone who actually enjoys the yo-yo racing that they “really don’t know what racing is about” — and the maddening part is that he’s not wrong.
The 2026 technical overhaul created something genuinely strange. The new power units run on nearly a 50-50 split between the internal combustion engine and electrical energy, which means battery management now drives the race as much as driving talent does. The Overtake Mode button gives a driver a power surge to pass — but burns through the charge doing it, leaving them a sitting duck on the very next straight. Positions swap. The battles continue. The lap counter ticks down and nobody has actually gone anywhere.
Verstappen described it bluntly this week.
“You boost past, then you run out of battery the next straight, and they boost past you again,” Verstappen said. That’s not a hot take. That’s a mechanical description of what viewers watched happen in Melbourne and Shanghai. The Australian opener logged 75 more overtakes than last year’s race at the same circuit. Impressive number. Almost meaningless in context.
An overtake that gets reversed two corners later isn’t an overtake. It’s a position exchange, powered by a button. And dressing that up as close racing is exactly the kind of thing F1’s marketing department loves and race engineers quietly despise.
So yes — the critique has merit. The problem is that Max Verstappen is the single least credible person in the paddock to be making it.
Verstappen’s Complaints Are Selective
Max Verstappen is sitting eighth in the championship after two rounds with eight points. Red Bull is nowhere. The car he’s driving is getting lapped by the competitive window at the front. Verstappen retired from sixth place in Shanghai while trying to keep pace with Oliver Bearman in a Haas. That’s the context for this crusade. And context matters.
Toto Wolff put it cleanly: “Clearly, lift and coast for a qualifying lap for a guy like Max, who is all attack, is difficult to cope with and digest. But I would say it’s more of a car-specific issue that kind of magnifies the problem.”
Wolff isn’t wrong either. Verstappen’s complaints have a habit of correlating with his results. This is the same driver who had nothing but disdain for the Las Vegas Grand Prix until he won it. The same driver who, during four years of Red Bull dominance, told fans struggling to connect with processional racing that they simply weren’t appreciating greatness correctly. He was gatekeeping enjoyment then, too, just from the other direction.
When pressed on his selective outrage, Verstappen was, well, Verstappen.
“I would say the same if I were winning races, because I care about the racing product.”
Maybe. But that line would land a lot harder if he hadn’t spent the last several years perfectly comfortable while critics called his era boring.
Charles Leclerc, who is actually in contention, offered a different read.
“I enjoy it, and it doesn’t feel so artificial from inside the car,” he said after China. He finished second in the Chinese Grand Prix Sprint race, watched Lewis Hamilton take a podium in the race, and walked away with a car that looks like a genuine championship contender. His perspective on the regulations isn’t disconnected from his results either, but at least he’s engaging honestly with what the new formula actually produces rather than scorching the whole thing.
F1’s True Issue is Not Max Verstappen
The real issue Formula 1 faces here isn’t Max Verstappen’s mood. It’s that his underlying argument — that manufactured position swaps aren’t the same as earned overtakes — is a conversation the sport needs to have seriously, and can’t have seriously because the loudest voice making the case is someone with an obvious axe to grind.
When the guy with the most to gain from a rule change is also the guy screaming loudest for that change, it poisons the well. Valid criticisms get filed under sour grapes. Fans who might otherwise engage with the nuance dismiss the whole argument. And F1’s leadership, already financially comfortable with the current direction, gets to do exactly what Verstappen accused them of doing — counting the engagement numbers and moving on.
He’s not wrong about what the regulations produce. He’s just the wrong messenger. And in Formula 1, those two things have a way of mattering equally.
