Max Verstappen has said a lot of bleak things about Formula 1 this year.
He has called the 2026 cars “anti-racing,” compared them to Mario Kart, and described the sensation of driving one as “Formula E on steroids.”
Often, the response from his detractors or even his rivals has been approximately the same: he’ll calm down once Red Bull closes the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari and can fight for wins again.
After the Japanese Grand Prix weekend, that explanation started to run out of road.
Speaking to the BBC ahead of the Suzuka race, Verstappen’s comments were particularly significant because of the care he took to separate his unhappiness from Red Bull’s current performance.
“I can easily accept to be in P7 or P8 where I am,” he said. “Because I also know that you can’t be dominating or fighting for a podium every time. I’m very realistic in that. I’ve been there before. I’ve not only been winning in F1.
“But at the same time, when you are in P7 or P8 and you are not enjoying the whole formula behind it, it doesn’t feel natural to a racing driver.
“It’s really anti-driving. Then at one point, yeah, it’s just not what I want to do.”
By Sunday, he had finished eighth and appeared genuinely open to leaving before his Red Bull contract expires in 2028.
Verstappen is yet to finish in the top five this year
Grand Prix Photo
Asked about a potential departure, he said: “I’m thinking about everything inside this paddock. Privately I’m very happy. You also wait for 24 races – this time 22 – and then you just think: is it worth it? Or do I enjoy being more at home with my family?”
De Telegraaf, the Dutch outlet that has long been the most reliable on all things Verstappen, also reported he could quit the sport, describing “crucial weeks ahead.”
Those weeks are now here. Formula 1’s calendar has a gap after the Middle East double-header was cancelled, and it is understood that Verstappen’s Red Bull contract contains a clause allowing him to leave if he is not in the top two of the drivers’ championship by a specified date.
With just 12 points from three races, 51 behind second-placed George Russell and 60 behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, that exit route appears to be opening.
His language at Suzuka didn’t look like a man putting on frustration for the cameras.
The easy counter-argument, that Verstappen’s mood is inseparable from Red Bull’s results, has been available all season so far, and it has a partial truth to it.
Former Audi team principal Jonathan Wheatley, who knows Verstappen well from their time together at Red Bull, suggested his criticism was partly “because of where he finds himself.”
Others have made the same point more bluntly, suggesting Verstappen would be quiet if he were driving the Mercedes.
Verstappen was “beyond frustrated” after Japan qualifying
But Verstappen himself has been consistent in pre-empting precisely that line of dismissal. “I keep telling myself every day to try and enjoy it. It’s just very hard,” he said in the BBC interview.
The weight of evidence suggests Verstappen means what he is saying.
His complaints are not vague; they are technical, very specific, and rooted in a critique of the power unit philosophy he was making before the 2026 cars hit the track, when, as his father Jos noted, “everybody was laughing at him.”
The core problem, as Verstappen has articulated it repeatedly, is that the near 50-50 split between combustion and electrical power has turned driving into a management exercise.
Verstappen is not alone in feeling the racing has taken a turn for the worse, as many other F1 drivers expressed their unhappiness at seeing Suzuka become much less of a challenge under the 2026 rules.
In Japan, Verstappen pointed to the direct consequence that other drivers have also complained about: you can attempt an overtake, but completing it costs you battery for the next straight, so the pass immediately reverses.
The four-time champion spent much of Sunday stuck behind Pierre Gasly‘s Alpine for exactly this reason.
Norris had initially defended the rules, but not anymore
McLaren
Verstappen has already built the infrastructure for a post-Formula 1 life with his GT team.
His ambitions are pointed squarely at the Nürburgring 24 Hours, a race he has called “amazing,” with the 2026 edition falling conveniently in F1’s gap between Miami and Canada, and he has already hinted that he would like to race at Le Mans as well.
Verstappen’s alternative career is not hypothetical. It already exists.
What F1 owes Verstappen
Being a Formula 1 driver is a huge privilege. Few other positions, not just in sport but in any field, have such a small number of participants, so any driver who makes it onto the grid should consider themselves lucky.
But it’s also a privilege for F1 to have the best drivers in the world and, in Verstappen’s case, arguably the best.
So what does Formula 1 owe Verstappen?
That is the harder question, and the instinctive answer, that a sport doesn’t reshape itself around any one participant, is not quite as obvious as it sounds when the driver in question is Max Verstappen.
He is 28, third on the all-time wins list with 71, behind only Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher, and by the consensus of almost everyone who has driven alongside him, capable of things only he can do.
The 2026 regulations were partly conceived to attract new manufacturers, Audi among them, and to future-proof the championship’s relevance to an electrified automotive world.
Those are legitimate goals.
But should the ruling body’s obligations extend to protecting what F1 actually is? That is, the stage on which the greatest drivers perform.
The sport, including the FIA, is not entirely deaf to this. Review meetings are scheduled in April to assess whether the regulations need refinement following huge amounts of criticism, not just from Verstappen, but also from other drivers and fans.
Verstappen is a big attraction for F1 fans
Grand Prix Photo
Ahead of the Japanese GP, the FIA had already reduced the energy recovery allowance from nine megajoules to eight for qualifying to reduce the lift-and-coast and the super-clipping, though it was nowhere near enough to make a significant difference.
The deeper problem F1 is facing is far more structural than it wishes, and one that drivers like Verstappen know can’t be fixed with small adjustments.
Formula 1’s recent commercial success has been built partly on Verstappen’s dominance.
F1 cut Suzuka’s energy limit by a megajoule, but the fundamental problem remains, says Mark Hughes
By
Mark Hughes
The idea that Formula 1 is thriving in spite of his unhappiness was more defensible in the previous era – regardless of Verstappen having yet to finish a race in the top five this year – because there are now too many voices joining him in claiming this is not what racing should be.
Three of the four world champions currently on the grid have made little effort to hide their dissatisfaction with the regulations, with Hamilton still the most positive voice of those, although less so after Japan.
Whether others would retire because of the rules is beyond the point: There is a certain unhappiness all across the grid, and Verstappen simply loves racing too much to stick around just because it’s Formula 1.
After Australia, Verstappen put the question back where it belongs: “What they should worry about is the rules, just focus on that. They ask questions and I give my opinion of what I would like to see and what I think is better for the sport because I do care about it, I do love racing and I want it to be better than this, right?
“So let’s see what we can do. I hope that even during this year, maybe we can come up with some different solutions so it becomes more enjoyable for everyone.”
No sport should change its regulations simply to keep one man happy, but when that man is also its defining talent, and when his diagnosis of what is wrong is shared by a substantial portion of the field, the two arguments are not as separate as Formula 1’s bosses might prefer.
Verstappen would not be the last driver to leave F1 before his time was up, but if he goes now – having told the sport what was coming and been told, in effect, to wait and see – that would feel like a different kind of exit.
