SHANGHAI, China — Max Verstappen complained Red Bull “never had anything this bad” after labouring to eighth on the grid for China’s sprint race.
Verstappen has been increasingly downbeat this year due to his dislike of F1’s controversial new hybrid-engined cars.
Red Bull is also significantly off the pace with its newly built engine, which only appears to be worsening his overall mood about the 2026 season.
On Friday, he qualified 1.7 seconds off George Russell’s sprint pole time, an enormous gap in a modern qualifying session.
“The car’s undriveable. We never had anything this bad, with everything together,” Verstappen said over the radio later in the session.
Verstappen struggled to find any positives about the situation when asked about it in his TV interviews.
“The whole day has been a disaster pace-wise,” Verstappen told Sky Sports. “No grip. Honestly, I think that’s the biggest problem. No grip, no balance.
“Just losing massive amounts of time in the corners, to be honest. And then, of course, because of that, you start triggering other little problems. But the big problem for us is just the cornering is completely out.”
Verstappen faces the daunting prospect of having the sprint race on Saturday morning, followed by qualifying for the grand prix itself on Saturday afternoon.
Asked if there was anything Red Bull could do to ensure a smoother end to the weekend, he said: “We’ll have a look. I don’t know at the moment what we can do, but we’ll see.”
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The growing unhappiness of Verstappen, who most agree is the best driver in F1 currently by some margin, should have alarm bells ringing for Formula 1.
The four-time world champion admitted on Thursday he feels “conflicted” by his future having repeatedly expressed his dislike for F1’s new hybrid engines, which feature a 50-50 split of combustion and electrical power.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s slate of races, Verstappen joked he was now practicing for F1 races by playing Mario Kart and collecting red mushrooms and blue shells.
The new engines have placed a huge emphasis on harvesting and deploying battery power throughout a race — during preseason testing, he said the new cars were like “Formula E on steroids”.
Verstappen’s criticisms of the new cars stretch back years — he was voicing concerns as early as 2023.
