All the disappointment of Max Verstappen
While Mercedes And Ferrari subvert the hierarchies of last season and enjoy a start in 2026 as great protagonists, with the Silver Arrows clearly having the advantage in terms of pure performance, among the big disappointed of this first remnant of the new era World Cup there could only be Max Verstappen. And if in Melbourne on Saturday he immediately went uphill with the accident in Q1 which surprisingly eliminated him from the top battle, it certainly cannot be said that in GP’s China things are going much better. Indeed, the four-time world champion already struggled in the sprint qualifying, not going beyond a disappointing eighth place on the grid, with a situation that even worsened in the 100km race on Saturday.
The words at the end of the China GP Sprint Race
The protagonist of a terrible start, the Dutchman from Red Bull in fact he found himself fighting in the belly of the group, thus having to recover with overtaking, complete with a fratricidal fight with his young teammate Isack Hadjar. Inevitable, given the ninth place finish which also implies a heavy zero under “points collected”, we note the bad mood of Max Verstappen, who spoke on the microphones Sky at the interview ring after the checkered flag of the Sprint Race of the Chinese GP: “At the moment I don’t have many words, if I have to be honest. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. The start is a problem that we have to fix, after which we are nowhere even in terms of balance”.
“Then, we also normally have higher tire degradation on the track, which is currently uncontrollable. And there are other car problems, so basically we are not well prepared and we have to put everything together. The difficulties of this beginning of the season? Yes, they are a little more than we would have expected”, concludes a rather pessimistic Max Verstappen already in the second weekend of the new era of Formula 1.
