Four-time Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen, whose start to the season has been difficult and who finished eighth in the Japanese Grand Prix this Sunday (29), let it appear, discouraged, that he could leave the premier class of motorsport.
For weeks now, and again throughout the weekend at Suzuka, the 28-year-old Dutchman, who crushed his rivals from 2021 to 2024 with four consecutive titles and came close to a fifth last year, has not stopped criticizing the 2026 Red Bull car, calling it “ungovernable”.
Verstappen also did not stop criticizing the new regulations on engines, half electric, half thermal, this season, going so far as to compare F1 races with those in the popular video game “Mario Kart” or with a Formula E (electric) “on steroids”.
Interviewed by the BBC, Verstappen reiterated that he finds “no pleasure in the new F1”, that is, in the regulations that now govern the world championship.
“When you think about it, is it really worth it? […] Wouldn’t it be better to spend more time with my family, see more of my friends, instead of playing a sport that doesn’t satisfy me?” he asked himself.
Saturday’s training and qualifying (28) were “a disaster and I tried to optimize today’s race, but the car is still the same”, he complained to some journalists, after finishing far from the front runners in Suzuka.
After starting from eleventh position on the grid, “I just tried to hold on”, sighed the driver to journalists, visibly downcast and discouraged.
Verstappen has been protesting since the start of the season against the new regulation of hybrid engines, supposedly intended to encourage overtaking, but which divides the paddock due to the complex management of the battery’s electrical energy.
On Thursday (26), he confessed that he no longer believes in victory and that he is thinking about 2027.
This defeatism was also reflected in his temperament, which even led him to expel a British journalist from The Guardian newspaper from last Thursday’s press conference for a question he had asked him in December about how he lost the championship last year.
Like the other 21 drivers, Verstappen will be able to rest until the first weekend of May, when F1 returns to Miami, after a break of more than a month forced by the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, both scheduled for April, because of the war in the Middle East.
“I’m going to do other races, things that bring my smile back”, said Verstappen, who a few days ago already participated in an endurance race in Germany.
The specialized press also publishes rumors about his future at Red Bull, where he has a contract until the end of 2027.
