{"id":904176,"date":"2026-09-21T14:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/904176\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T14:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:22:13","slug":"guenther-steiner-predicts-max-verstappen-will-go-winless-in-2026-f1-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/904176\/","title":{"rendered":"Guenther Steiner predicts Max Verstappen will go winless in 2026 F1 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Haas Formula 1 team principal Guenther Steiner believes four-time champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/driver\/max-verstappen\/17529\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Max Verstappen<\/a> will fail to win a single grand prix during the 2026 F1 season, arguing that Red Bull&#8217;s package is not competitive enough.<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen currently sits sixth in the standings with 145 points, 147 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli. The Dutchman&#8217;s best results so far this year have been second place at the Austrian, Hungarian and Spanish Grands Prix.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/W5pcopodItM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-custom-text=\"1\">The Red Flags Podcast<\/a> following the Spanish Grand Prix, Steiner was asked during the show&#8217;s &#8216;Gas or Brake&#8217; feature whether Verstappen would finish the 2026 season without a victory.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Gas, he will not. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/team\/mercedes\/5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Mercedes<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/team\/mclaren\/10\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">McLaren<\/a> are too strong, and it&#8217;s just the car,&#8221; the former Haas team chief explained. &#8220;He&#8217;s not good enough. He will be Super Max, he will be on the podium, but I think that&#8217;s the limit. That&#8217;s the limit of that car.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790000533_530_max-verstappen-red-bull-racing.jpg\" alt=\"Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: Simon Galloway \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>In Madrid,\u00a0Verstappen capitalised when polesitter Norris lost his lead due to an ill-timed virtual safety car and a slow pitstop. With overtaking opportunities almost non-existent on the new circuit, Verstappen held track position ahead of Norris to finish second.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While speaking to Sky Sports after the race, Verstappen discussed his pace disadvantage to McLaren and Mercedes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just looking at the lap times, we are quite a bit down still,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a mix of a lot of things, for sure maybe a little bit of deployment, but also the car itself that we still need to improve on, because when Lando was behind me he was flying. He was a lot faster, but just because of the nature of the track he couldn&#8217;t get by.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 15th round of the 2026 season, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, is set for 24-26 September at the Baku City Circuit.<\/p>\n<p>            We want your opinion!<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-auto\">What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n<p>            <a href=\"#\" class=\"ms-link text-link font-bold\">Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-1 text-body\">&#8211; The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Haas Formula 1 team principal Guenther Steiner believes four-time champion Max Verstappen will fail to win a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":904177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[77894,77895,49,48,578,576,577,312689,1885,2190,82,4962],"class_list":["post-904176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-azerbaijan-gp","tag-baku-city-circuit","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-guenther-steiner-predicts-max-verstappen-will-go-winless-in-2026-f1-season","tag-max-verstappen","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-trendingteam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904176","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=904176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}