{"id":515460,"date":"2026-03-03T07:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T07:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515460\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T07:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T07:01:10","slug":"max-verstappen-weighs-in-on-2026-f1-cars-says-electrical-power-difficulty-to-drive-make-them-far-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515460\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen weighs in on 2026 F1 cars, says electrical power, difficulty to drive make them far worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAs a pure driver, I enjoy driving flat-out,\u201d Verstappen said. \u201cAnd at the moment, you cannot drive like that. A lot of what you do as a driver, in terms of inputs, has a massive effect on the energy side of things. For me, that\u2019s just not Formula 1,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry, but that belongs in Formula E<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. They\u2019re no fun to drive<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me personally, it\u2019s not so enjoyable,\u201d said Verstappen of the way the current Red Bull car drives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe feeling in real life is the same as in the simulator,\u201d he claimed. \u201cSometimes certain things feel a bit better or worse in the simulator, but this time it was actually the same,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year at one point I deliberately said that I didn\u2019t want to drive it in the simulator any more. It felt so bad compared to last year, so I thought \u2018You know what, I\u2019ll just focus on last year\u2019s car in the sim, and we\u2019ll see about the rest this year\u2019. It\u2019s just not good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He even went as far as to say that the broadly disliked outgoing ground-effect cars of the past four seasons were \u201cstill 10 times better than this\u201d.<\/p>\n

3. The change is making him look at other race series<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still racing in Formula 1 and that\u2019s great, but once you\u2019ve already won and achieved everything, then it\u2019s not really necessary [to stay around] any more,\u201d he said, according to Autosport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of other nice things you can do, and I\u2019m definitely going to do those \u2013 maybe already this year and also in the coming years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis certainly doesn\u2019t help to keep going for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Max<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing says the new cars just won\u2019t be as fun to drive.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no great secret that Verstappen is looking at other racing series. His contract with Red Bull extends through to 2028, but he has negotiated several break clauses into it, including one where he has the option to leave if he\u2019s not one of the top two drivers after half the season.<\/p>\n

His undercover test session at the N\u00fcrburgring in May 2025 under the pseudonym Franz Hermann (and in a Ferrari, no less) has already become the stuff of legend and hinted at an entry into the 24 Hours event there. Verstappen\u2019s also recently been eyeing an entry at Le Mans in partnership with fellow Red Bull world champ Sebastian Vettel.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see how he could be attracted to rawer, more visceral forms of racing if the current F1 cars don\u2019t satisfy the requirement for wheel-to-wheel racing where the best driver wins.<\/p>\n

4. The tech rules make racing chaotic<\/p>\n

For Verstappen, the best form of racing is a meritocratic one where the most talented driver walks away with the silverware. Max backs himself.<\/p>\n

The current rule set introduces all manner of curveballs that inject an unwelcome element of chaos, effectively allowing drivers to simply hit a button on the steering wheel to unleash additional electrical power.<\/p>\n

This includes the new-for-2026 Overtake Mode, which uses electrical boost in place of the old Drag Reduction System. There\u2019s also a setting called Straight Mode, which opens the front and rear wings on the straight, instantly altering the aerodynamic balance of the cars.<\/p>\n

When asked about Overtake Mode, Verstappen told RacingNews365: \u201cI don\u2019t know how effective [it] will be \u2026 maybe we need some bananas and a red shell,\u201d referencing the Mario Kart video game series.<\/p>\n

\"Oscar<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen (obscured) and Lando Norris after the F1 season finale last year.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

5. His Red Bull may not be the quickest<\/p>\n

While Verstappen relied on a bit of external help to claim the 2021 crown against a quicker Mercedes-AMG car, the next three championship wins saw him in undoubtedly the quickest car on the grid for most of the time.<\/p>\n

McLaren flipped that script in the later stages of 2024 and were manifestly superior in 2025, but Verstappen still dragged Red Bull to within two points of the drivers\u2019 championship.<\/p>\n

Given that McLaren \u201cgifted\u201d eventual winner Lando Norris three points by forcing a positional swap<\/a> with Oscar Piastri at Monza after a botched pit stop, Max very nearly did the impossible last year after coming back from a more than 100-point deficit.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s clearly too early to make any definitive statements on the pace of this year\u2019s crop of cars, testing in Bahrain would seem to suggest that Mercedes-AMG and Ferrari have the edge, with Red Bull mixing it with McLaren just a step behind.<\/p>\n

That may well change come lights-out in Melbourne, but it\u2019s a fact that any race car is easier to love when it\u2019s winning.<\/p>\n

Should Max consistently miss out on podiums in the Red Bull, expect the complaints to escalate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI just want normal driving,\u201d he told The Race. \u201cHow it should be, without having to [think] \u2018Ooh, if I brake a bit longer, or less, or more, or one gear up or down\u2019, stuff like that, that it so heavily impacts the performance on the straights.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlus the grip, I think at the moment, is quite low with these tyres and the car configuration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is, I would say a big step back to how it was.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAs a pure driver, I enjoy driving flat-out,\u201d Verstappen said. \u201cAnd at the moment, you cannot drive like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-515460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515460","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=515460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}