‘Brutal to watch’ – Red Bull insider weighs in on Max Verstappen’s ‘big problem’

Former Red Bull mechanic Calum Nicholas has admitted it was “brutal” to watch Max Verstappen’s poor start at the Chinese Grand Prix.

And he says F1 2026 “was never going to be an easy year” for Red Bull, backing the team to “dig deep” in the face of a challenging start to the new season.

Max Verstappen starts ‘brutal to watch’ at Chinese Grand Prix

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Red Bull is producing its own engines for the first time this season after parting ways with Honda at the end of last year, with the Milton Keynes outfit suffering a troubled start to 2026.

Verstappen failed to record a time in qualifying at the opening race in Australia, recovering to sixth – albeit a minute behind the race-winner Mercedes of George Russell – the following day.

The four-time world champion went on to suffer his first retirement since last June in China last weekend, with an ERS cooling problem bringing his race to an early end.

That came after Verstappen qualified a second adrift of pole position in Shanghai.

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Meanwhile, Verstappen’s teammate Isack Hadjar finished eighth in China, recovering from an early spin after retiring with an engine failure in Australia.

Verstappen dropped a number of places off the line in Shanghai in both the sprint and main races, with Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls car – also using the Red Bull Powertrains engine – suffering a poor start in Australia seven days earlier.

Nicholas, who now works as a Red Bull Racing ambassador after leaving his garage role ahead of the 2025 season, says Verstappen’s start was “brutal” to witness in China.

Yet he is convinced that the team will get on top of its teething troubles in 2026.

In a post to social media after the Chinese Grand Prix, he wrote: “A tough weekend for the Bulls.

“Isack did well to recover, and I’m glad he got all those race laps under his belt after the failure in Oz!

“The poor starts have been brutal to watch.

“I love to give my controls engineering buddies a bit of stick, but it really is an art form and I can’t imagine how much more difficult these PUs make it.

“Brutal to watch Max go backwards.

“This was never going to be an easy year. If you thought that a team would build an incredible factory and design & manufacture a completely faultless PU in four years, and go on to instant success, then you really don’t understand the technical challenge that is F1.

“As I’ve said previously, if there’s any outfit in the paddock that can make this work, it’s ORBR [Oracle Red Bull Racing].

“It’s a process. We’ve had tough years before, when we do, we dig deep!”

Verstappen claimed after the race in Shanghai that “the same” issue was behind his poor starts in the sprint and grand prix, revealing that the engine “is not there” when he releases the clutch at launch.

He said: “The start, of course, was a big problem – the same as yesterday.

“The rest of the race was, again, the same as yesterday: just a lot of graining, can’t push, terrible pace, terrible balance like yesterday. A very bad weekend for us.

“I had no battery [at the start] in Melbourne and, here, the two problems are the same.

“I just have no power. I release the clutch and the engine is not there.”

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