It’s fair to say that ever since Max Verstappen lost his 1,457 day grip on the Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship loosened from his grasp, things have not been entirely going his way.
But that timeline began with a look of serene acceptance that his streak as the champion was gone.
In fact, when I, on behalf of Motorsport Monday, asked him how he quantified any sense of pride that he only lost it by two points [when having been over 100 behind in August], he provided a somewhat un-Verstappen-like answer that totalled to over a minute, in which he smiled, looked relaxed and said that he ‘felt good’.
He was likely comfortable in the knowledge – that he had voiced publicly days earlier – that he would have been champion for a fifth successive year, and long ago, had he been driving the McLaren that propelled Lando Norris to is first title.
The only negative in Verstappen’s mind that day was the question put to him by The Guardian’s Giles Richards about how he felt that he lost by the two points he lost via a time penalty for being adjudged to have deliberately driven into George Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix in May. But more on that shortly.
Since then, Verstappen has been invariably putting his focus into maximising [no pun intended] Red Bull’s chances of success this year, as Formula 1 entered into its brand-new regulations cycle, and with it, the Milton Keynes-based squad’s new in-house engine partnership with Ford.
As well as that, he will have no doubt been setting some of his grey matter aside for some thought towards his NLS race, which provided the dress rehearsal for his Nurburgring 24 Hours entry later in the calendar.
Max Verstappen unimpressed with F1 2026
So then, what has come since the winter? Well, he has taken a view of the new rules so dim that the most sophisticated lightswitch couldn’t reach it. Likening it to “Formula E on steroids”, the Dutchman would have found little to quell his burgeoning gloomy mood by crashing out in Q1 for the season-opener in Australia, triggering another ferocious takedown of the new cars.
If fortunes had been a little kinder in Melbourne, though, the RB22 might have been able to have challenged Ferrari for a podium, but in China, a twitchy, understeering RB22 saw him battling for positions in the midfield, before a separate issue caused his retirement.
At the Nurburgring, his Red Bull-liveried Mercedes-AMG carried him, Jules Gounon and Dani Juncadella to victory, setting the tone nicely for his 24-hour attempt. But then it came to light that it used too many tyres and Verstappen and his team were stripped of the victory.
And on Thursday’s media day at Suzuka, Mr Richards, having just begun to see the teeth marks on his head – from where Verstappen had bitten it off in Abu Dhabi – wear off, sat down at Red Bull’s hospitality section, to find Verstappen was aiming his crosshairs firmly at his head, stating he would start the media session until he had left.
A brief exchange was followed by an eerie silence as Mr Richards took his audio recorder and vacated the building. Cue a new Verstappen hysteria.
Come the actual race, things didn’t fare better. A battle with former Red Bull partner Pierre Gasly was lost, finishing eighth, and with that, came more wafer-thin-veiled comments about how he is considering his future in the sport.
Two questions: 1. Can you blame him? And 2. Does he really mean it?
No, and yes.
I think it’s fair to wonder if Verstappen is really just saying what most F1 fans are thinking – he doesn’t like the new regulations, he believes it is not in the ethos of F1 and if he isn’t enjoying himself, then why continue? Many are not enjoying this from the comfort of their own homes or indeed in grandstands, so imagine how Verstappen, and the other drivers bold enough to complain, feel when sat literally in the driving seat?
Many of his detractors would say that it’s just a case of him stomping his foot and having a tantrum because he isn’t getting his own way. I believe Verstappen is principled enough to call out F1 from his own perspective whether he was winning or not. True, maybe not with the same level of venom, but he would nonetheless. Plus, Verstappen has frequently discussed an early retirement from F1 anyway, acknowledging there are more important things in life. As well as his partner and step-daughter, he now has a blood daughter of his own and has other interests, like his sim racing team, and his additional racing activities.
Could F1 change course?
So if we are to assume he is speaking with authenticity when it comes to his consideration of retirement from F1, what does F1 think, say or indeed do about it?
No, a driver, nor a team, is as big as the sport itself, but Verstappen’s driving and personally both in and out of the cockpit is sheer box office stuff. Love him or hate him, he provides a river of entertainment which pulls you into the current of the F1 seas itself.
In 1986, when it was announced that F1 would soon abandon its turbo era, Ferrari, so irked by the decision, researched an entry into the CART Championship. It designed and built a car, tested it, showed it to the world and sent a collective number of shivers up so many spines within FISA, that turbos remained in F1 for another few seasons.
The thing is that Verstappen, should he firmly rubber-stamp an intention to quit, might light a blue touchpaper to give other drivers the courage to say, ‘yes, he’s right, I don’t like this’. If a stand is made, what exactly is F1 going to do? Mohammed Ben Sulayem has already signalled his own wish for F1 to revert back to internal combustion engines, and it’s been proven that, with a continuation of sustainable fuels, that Net Zero targets can be likely met with a compromise that would leave drivers and fans a lot happier. And in the UK, given how he has been the subject of some negative press due to his fraught rivalries with British drivers, it would be easy to forget that in other parts of the world, he commands huge support with a loyal fanbase. Verstappen leaves F1, then his fanbase leaves with him.
These are therefore two perfectly good reasons for why Verstappen’s retirement hints might need to be taken seriously. Saying he would become an F1 martyr for the cause as a result might be pushing it somewhat, but it would certainly add another huge element to what already has become a unique yet brilliant legacy.
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