Max Verstappen doesn\u2019t mince his words; he speaks openly and honestly about what he thinks, even if it ruffles a few feathers. This was certainly the case in a recent conversation with my colleague Andrew Benson from the BBC. Among other things, they discussed the contentious topic of the 2026 race cars.<\/p>\n
Ever since the first race of the season, the 28-year-old Dutchman has been highly critical of the new generation of cars. So why has he nevertheless signed a new contract running until the end of 2030? Max: \u201cBecause I hope things will get better again in the future. I still love the sport, even if I don\u2019t find the driving particularly thrilling at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we look at the history of the sport, it\u2019s always been like that \u2013 the driver who gives it their all, who brakes the latest, who gets back on the throttle the earliest, who takes a leap of faith in the fast corners, they were rewarded, because that\u2019s how you could gain time in the corners.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut these days, all you\u2019re constantly thinking is: \u2018In this corner I need to hold back a bit, I need to brake later, I need to get back on the throttle later, I need to lift off \u2013 that\u2019s the only way I\u2019ll have enough power for top speed on the straight later on.\u2019 That\u2019s the sort of thing you\u2019re thinking about. That\u2019s just not natural for a racer. It shouldn\u2019t be like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to sound disrespectful, and I really hope what I\u2019m about to say isn\u2019t taken the wrong way. But look at how Yuki Tsunoda stepped in for the Racing Bulls at Zandvoort. He\u2019d never driven the car before. And he was up to speed straight away. Look at Liam Lawson, switching from the Racing Bulls to our car at Red Bull Racing \u2013 competitive straight away. That\u2019s simply because these cars are perfectly suited to what the driver can bring to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course you still have to be fast. Of course you still have to give it your all. At the end of the day, the fastest drivers will always be right up there at the front. But it\u2019s all rather limited; as a driver, you feel like you\u2019re in a stranglehold. You feel held back.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the sound. Max continues: \u201cWe need to go back to the naturally aspirated V8, and not just for the drivability. When you sit in an older car, it absolutely blows you away just how huge the difference is \u2013 how responsive the naturally aspirated engine is to the throttle, how easy such an engine is to drive. A V8 is so much better, so free, so light. Our cars today are far too heavy. I\u2019m not saying we should do away with electric power altogether, but it simply shouldn\u2019t have the massive influence it does today. Why not have electric power just in the form of a button that lets you call up a boost of electric power for overtaking?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA V8, or going back even further, the V10 and V12 \u2013 that really stirs the emotions! Those are the engines I loved as a child. Just hearing an engine like that gives you goosebumps. OK, maybe years ago they only reached, in inverted commas, 300 km\/h. Now we\u2019re doing 350 or 360, but that doesn\u2019t matter, because the sound today doesn\u2019t stir any emotions. Those old engines \u2013 what a roar they made! And you could feel every vibration. I want to feel that again in a Formula 1 racing car.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen doesn\u2019t mince his words; he speaks openly and honestly about what he thinks, even if it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-889458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}