New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nSpeculation Verstappen was preparing for a future outside Formula 1 intensified this week with confirmation the Dutchman would enter the N\u00fcrburgring 24 Hours with his own team and with Red Bull backing, his latest in a growing line of outings in GT3 machinery.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Chinese Grand Prix, Verstappen admitted he was conflicted about his Formula 1 future but said that his extra-curricular activities would likely extend his grand prix career rather than shorten it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to leave, really,\u201d he said. \u201cI wish I had a bit more fun for sure, but I\u2019m also doing other stuff that is a lot of fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get to race the Nordschleife. I hope in the coming years I can do [24 Hours of] Spa, hopefully [24 Hours of] Le Mans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m combining stuff to find other stuff that I find really fun as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have my team going on, so I have a lot of distractions at the same time \u2014 positive distractions I would call them.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the same time, it\u2019s a bit conflicting because I don\u2019t really enjoy driving the [current F1] car, but I do enjoy working with all the people in the team and from the engine department as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like a bit of a mind \u2014 I can\u2019t swear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I had a bit more fun at the moment here, but at the same time I\u2019m also very happy that the team let me do all these things.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just something that I\u2019m looking forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n
PIT TALK PODCAST: The 2026 Formula 1 season is underway, with George Russell leading a Mercedes one-two to victory in Melbourne. But not every driver was thrilled with their first experience of the new rules.<\/p>\n
After the Australian Grand Prix, where discussion was dominated by the driving compromises required by the new engines, Verstappen said he was speaking out because he wanted to save Formula 1 and that he hoped the governing body would listen.<\/p>\n
In Shanghai he suggested he\u2019d been able to start the conversation to change the rules sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to leave, but I also hope of course that it gets better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had discussions with FOM and FIA and I think we are working towards something, hopefully, and hopefully that will improve everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dutchman denied his impeding N\u00fcrburgring 24 Hours debut was connected to his dissatisfaction with the current cars, arguing that it had been set up long before the Formula 1 season began.<\/p>\n
But he also said that he was finding fresh satisfaction from the GT3 environment that he is no longer getting from Formula 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a way of working with people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a different environment as well that you\u2019re in in the paddock, I would say \u2014 probably a little bit more old-school, less political, which probably I enjoy a bit more. I can probably be a bit more myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I enjoy, plus of course these races, like all the big endurance ones, I want to do. It\u2019s something that when I was a kid my dad was doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t need to be only a Formula 1 driver; I can also do other things, especially as I\u2019ve done this already for a while and I\u2019ve achieved everything that I wanted to achieve. That\u2019s why I want to explore also other things, and I don\u2019t want to do them when I\u2019m 40 years old, so now I think this is the perfect age to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking about his hopes this weekend, Verstappen said that Red Bull Racing\u2019s result will depend on how well it can extract performance from its new car and first in-house power unit, though he added the gap to the leading Mercedes and Ferrari cars was foreboding.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure there is a lot of potential,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to depend on if we can extract that throughout the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gap was quite big and also in the race [in Australia]. I think if I would have started a little bit up front, the best that I could have done was one spot higher, because we didn\u2019t have the pace of the top four cars. We also had a lot of degradation and graining.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens in the coming races, if we can close that gap a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen hopes the controversial 2026 Formula 1 regulations can be changed before he considers quitting the sport.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[51051,1724,64,63,689,512,9239,234665,3875,2105,114499,18891,16215,825,647,806,805,803,804,677,2119,266562,18923,266559,266558,266560,266563,4933,85,266561,660],"class_list":["post-537496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-alex-bierens-de-haan","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-china","tag-eastern-asia","tag-engine-department","tag-george-russell","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-grand-prix-career","tag-home-track","tag-in-house-power-unit","tag-max-verstappen","tag-melbourne","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-oceania","tag-pit-talk","tag-positive-distractions","tag-power-unit","tag-racing-series","tag-rules-changing","tag-rules-disagreement","tag-rules-frustration","tag-shanghai","tag-sports","tag-team-let","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537496","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=537496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n