Former Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner has played down Max Verstappen’s complaints over the new 2026 cars.<\/p>\n
The challengers have gone through a significant shift this year with major changes made to the aerodynamics and the power units.<\/p>\n
However, Verstappen voiced his disappointment over how the cars now need to be driven, with a greater emphasis on managing the battery.<\/p>\n
The four-time champion labelled the new rules as \u201canti-racing\u201d and cast fresh doubt over his F1 future.<\/p>\n
But Steiner thinks Verstappen will change his tone if he gets another championship-contending car underneath him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will be happy enough to fight for the world championship title,\u201d Steiner told RTL. \u201cThat’s what he wants, and he’s the best driver at the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a driver, you have to rethink things with this new energy recovery system and come up with a whole new strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s just different. We humans don’t like big changes. But as soon as he starts winning, he’ll be happy with the car.”<\/p>\n
However, with many drivers longing for a return to a full combustion engine formula, Steiner conceded that he understands why Verstappen is opposed to the new cars.<\/p>\n
“I understand Max’s criticism because there’s such a big change,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we know Max is a racer. He’d prefer to drive with a V10 or V12 engine \u2013 like in the old days.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Max is also a racing driver who can be fast anywhere. And as soon as he understands again that he can win something, he’ll get used to the new technology.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner has played down Max Verstappen’s complaints over the new 2026 cars.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,827,817,830,828,831,829,826,813,816,823,825,824,822,85],"class_list":["post-501014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}