Scott Gulbransen
Two races into Formula 1’s new era, Max Verstappen has nothing to show for it. No points. A retirement. A car that couldn’t hold a charge. And a mouth full of opinions about why the whole thing is broken.
Welcome to Red Bull’s 2026 season.
In Shanghai, Verstappen qualified eighth — nearly a full second off Kimi Antonelli’s pole — and then lost more ground off the line when the RB22 came up short on battery power at the start. He spent most of the afternoon clawing back through traffic, only to get the call on Lap 46 to bring it in. The cause was an ERS coolant failure. He left China with zero points.
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies didn’t spin it. “This was not our only issue,” he said. “Performance-wise, our package showed some significant shortcomings.”
That’s putting it diplomatically. Red Bull was emphatically the fourth-fastest team in Shanghai. Not close-fourth. Not fighting-for-the-podium-fourth. Fourth, trailing Mercedes, Ferrari, and a McLaren squad that didn’t even make the start.
Max Verstappen Not Hiding His Disappointment in 2026
Verstappen is not taking any of this quietly. He said flatly after the race that anyone who enjoys watching F1 in 2026 doesn’t understand what racing is about, calling the new formula “terrible” and “fundamentally flawed.”
He went further than that.
“You are boosting past, then you run out of battery the next straight. They boost past you again,” Verstappen said, describing what racing looks like from the middle of the pack — which, for a four-time world champion, is already a strange place to be.
The 2026 regulations mandate that roughly half the car’s power comes from its battery, which creates situations where drivers can gain a significant advantage from a boost mode but also get caught completely down on power when that battery runs dry. It’s the part of the new rules Verstappen has hated since he first saw them on paper. He warned the sport about this in 2023. He’s not in the mood to pretend he was wrong.
Red Bull Could Lose Verstappen After 2026
Now here’s where it gets genuinely interesting and a little uncomfortable for Red Bull.
According to reports, Verstappen’s contract includes a clause tied to the 2026 season: if he does not finish at least second in the Drivers’ Championship by the end of July, he would be entitled to terminate his deal with the team unilaterally, with no compensation owed to Red Bull. He’s under contract through 2028 on paper. But “on paper” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Two races in, he has zero points. George Russell leads the championship. Antonelli is right behind him. Verstappen isn’t on the board.
Related: Watch Formula 1 all season long on Apple TV+
Nobody’s panicking yet. It’s February in baseball terms. But the window to fix this is not unlimited, and Japan in two weeks is not going to be a gimme. Now, with two races being canceled due to the Middle Eastern military conflict, the season has gotten shorter. Verstappen himself acknowledged that the RB22’s problems shift from race to race and said China was the worst weekend yet for outright car pace.
What did Max Verstappen say about his status with Red Bull?
“My contract runs until 2028, but it will depend on the new rules in 2026, and if they are nice and fun. If they are not fun, then I don’t really see myself hanging around,” he said.
He said that when the regulations were still theoretical. They’re not theoretical anymore.
To be clear: nobody is reporting that Verstappen is packing his bags. Red Bull addressed the contract situation back in January, and Helmut Marko confirmed the exit clause had been changed or removed to lay a foundation for the team’s future, calling Verstappen one of the greatest sportsmen in the world. So the legal mechanism may not be what it was. But the bigger issue isn’t contractual — it’s competitive. Verstappen did not spend the last decade becoming the most dominant driver in a generation only to qualify eighth in 2026 and retire from sixth.
Red Bull has time. Adrian Newey’s shadow still looms over everything they build, and Ford’s engine partnership is still finding its feet. Regulation resets have burned teams before — Ferrari in 2022, Mercedes in 2022, Red Bull themselves at the start of 2014. Teams come back.
But Verstappen said the quiet part loud this winter. He can leave the sport easily. He doesn’t need a record-setting seventh or eighth title to feel complete. If the car isn’t good and the racing isn’t fun, he’ll walk.
After two races, neither of those boxes is checked.
Japan is in 11 days. The pressure to show something — anything — is already real.
