Max Verstappen has never been shy about saying when something in Formula 1 doesn’t feel quite right. What’s changed in 2026 is the way he’s choosing to package the message: with a laugh, a Nintendo Switch, and a pointed reminder that the sport shouldn’t need this much “management” to be compelling.
Red Bull’s lead driver insists he’s not going anywhere — not from F1, and not from the fight — but he’s also made it clear that the new regulations have taken a chunk of the joy out of the job. The Australian Grand Prix, where he laboured to sixth and summed it up on the radio as “super frustrating”, did little to soften his view from Bahrain testing, when he labelled the new direction “anti-racing”.
After the chequered flag, Verstappen didn’t bother pretending it was just a bad Sunday.
“I love racing, but you can only take so much, right?” he said. “It’s not like little tweaks for sure. I mean, I think they’re willing to listen, the FIA and F1, but I just hope that there is some action because I’m not the only one saying it.
“Whether it’s drivers, fans, we just want the best for the sport. It’s not that we are critical, just to be critical. We are critical for a reason. We want it to be Formula 1 proper, F1 on steroids. Today, that was not the case.”
The subtext has been obvious since the first proper running of these cars: energy management is now so central to how races play out that it’s warping the on-track behaviour. Overtakes might be more frequent, but they’re increasingly driven by who can deploy at the right moment rather than who can force an opening under braking, and that’s where the “Mario Kart” comparisons have come from.
Verstappen, in classic Verstappen fashion, leaned into it — then used the joke to land the point.
Asked if drivers who live in the simulator now have a bigger edge, he replied: “I found a cheaper solution. I swapped the simulator for my Nintendo Switch and, yeah, practicing a bit of Mario Kart, actually!”
He even ran through the details like it was a serious debrief. “Finding the mushrooms is going quite well. The blue shell is a bit more difficult, but I’m working on it. The rockets are still not there. The rocket is coming!”
Funny, yes — but there’s a sharper edge underneath. Verstappen isn’t just moaning about the feel of the car; he’s talking about what the sport is incentivising. When races become a rolling exercise in harvesting and deploying, drivers stop being rewarded for the messy, physical stuff that made their reputations in the first place. That’s not nostalgia; it’s a warning about what F1 is teaching its own audience to value.
And yet, the louder the grumbles get, the more Verstappen is trying to separate frustration with the rules from any suggestion he’s about to walk away. F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has already voiced confidence Verstappen will remain in the championship, and Verstappen’s own message is broadly aligned with that: he wants change, not an exit plan.
“I don’t want to leave, really,” Verstappen said. “I wish I had a bit more fun, for sure. But I’m also doing other stuff that is a lot of fun. I mean, I get to race the Nordschleife.”
That “other stuff” is doing some heavy lifting right now. Verstappen earned his Nordschleife permit in 2025 and is set to race the top-level Nürburgring 24 Hours in May. He also talked about wanting to add Spa and, ideally, Le Mans in the coming years — not as a replacement for F1, but as a pressure valve.
“I hope, in the coming years, I can do Spa, and hopefully Le Mans, you know,” he said. “So I’m combining stuff to find other stuff that I find really fun as well.
“So I have a lot of distractions at the same time, positive distractions, I would call it, but, at the same time, it’s a bit conflicting, because I don’t really enjoy driving the car, but I do enjoy working with all the people in the team and from the engine department as well.”
That’s about as close as you’ll get to a driver admitting the machinery has got in the way of the craft — while also acknowledging the pull of the people, the project, and the competitive instinct that doesn’t simply evaporate.
He even caught himself mid-thought, aware of the FIA’s current swearing clampdown. “So, yeah, it’s almost like a bit of a mind… I can’t swear! It was 5k [euro] now, yeah, 100k? Euros? Swearing, no, it’s 5k!” he said, before shrugging off the detail: “Anyway, you know what I mean, right?”
What matters is where he thinks this goes next. Verstappen said he’s been in talks with both F1 and the FIA about improvements, and while he wouldn’t offer specifics, he was clear he doesn’t want to accept that this is simply the new normal for years.
“I’ve had discussions with F1 and the FIA, and I think we are working towards something, and hopefully that will improve everything,” he said.
Pressed on whether he expects meaningful tweaks soon, he added: “I definitely hope not for the next few years. But I hope already for next year we can make a decent improvement. There are a few options that we are discussing.”
For all the Mario Kart wisecracks, Verstappen’s position is straightforward. He’ll keep racing in F1 — he’s said so, repeatedly — but he’s also drawing a line around what he considers “proper” Grand Prix racing. The danger for the rulemakers isn’t that he’ll storm off tomorrow; it’s that the most influential driver of his era is already telling you, in plain terms, that the product isn’t matching the promise. And in 2026, that’s not just a Verstappen problem. It’s an F1 one.
