Jos Verstappen has conceded that he sees the F1 future for his son Max as \u201cbleak\u201d following a painful start to the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
The four-time F1 champion has been vocal about his lack of enjoyment with the new machinery, with lap times heavily dependent on how a driver harvests and deploys energy from the battery.<\/p>\n
Verstappen has also faced a setback in the pecking order this year and has been unable to compete with front-runners Mercedes.<\/p>\n
As a result, Jos Verstappen has suggested his son is starting to lose his motivation for the sport.<\/p>\n
“You hear then that it’s a matter of getting used to it, but I’m sure Max is not going to get any enjoyment out of it this way,\u201d Verstappen senior told De Telegraaf.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, he always tries to make the best of it, that’s a separate issue. He and Red Bull are doing everything they can to become more competitive.<\/p>\n
“But racing in these cars doesn’t challenge him. To be honest, I do worry that Max is losing his motivation. He used to think racing in an F1 car was the greatest thing there was.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now I see it pretty bleak. I would like to say it wasn’t, but I do see this becoming a problem with regard to his future.”<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tVerstappen Sr ‘went back to sleep’<\/p>\n
The new regulations have been criticised by numerous F1 drivers, but some have been less pessimistic – including Lewis Hamilton, who stated the sport is \u201cmuch more fun\u201d in 2026.<\/p>\n
But like his son Max, Jos Verstappen is not impressed by the new rules.<\/p>\n
“Of course, I follow Max closely, and we have a lot of contact,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then, when I watch those sessions and hear where they have to get off the gas, it’s hard to get excited about that.<\/p>\n
“Two weeks ago, I got up at night for free practice in China, but turned off the television after 15 minutes and continued sleeping.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI had never done that before when it comes to Formula 1. That might also say something.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jos Verstappen has conceded that he sees the F1 future for his son Max as \u201cbleak\u201d following a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3518,3521,3519,3522,3520,3517,3515,42,3513,3516,3514,43,3512,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-353743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-headlines","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-news","tag-racing","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}