Max Verstappen admits ‘terrible pace’ as Red Bull struggles exposed in China

Max Verstappen has opened up on his struggles for pace in China, saying Red Bull will concentrate on finding more performance during the gap after Japan.

Verstappen failed to finish the Chinese Grand Prix, due to a suspected ERS cooling failure, which meant he had to retire from the race.

Max Verstappen: Red Bull struggled for pace in China

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Red Bull appeared to be off the pace of the leading trio of teams in China, with Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren qualifying ahead of the best of Verstappen’s efforts.

The Dutch driver’s rivals were Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Haas’ Oliver Bearman, and Verstappen was set to finish the race behind Bearman until his ERS issue ended his day early.

It was a difficult weekend overall for Red Bull, with Verstappen having struggled to get his RB22 off the line in either the Sprint or the Grand Prix, while Isack Hadjar’s Sunday was wrecked after a first-lap spin that sent him to the back of the pack.

But, aside from the misfortunes that hampered Red Bull’s efforts, the lack of pace on display from Red Bull was evident but, according to Verstappen, far from a surprise.

“It was expected, but again, at the start, it was a big problem, same as [the Sprint],” he said.

“The rest of the race was also the same as the Sprint; a lot of graining, I couldn’t push, terrible pace and terrible balance like [Saturday], so just a very bad weekend for us.”

Having looked slightly more competitive in terms of pace at the season opener in Australia, Verstappen had also struggled to get off the line at the start of the race as his battery had not been topped up sufficiently.

While he also suffered start problems in the two race starts in China, Verstappen suggested that the issues in Shanghai were the same, although different from Australia.

“I had no battery in Melbourne, and here, the two problems were the same,” he said.

“I just had no power. As soon as I release the clutch, the engine is not there.”

Red Bull had been singled out by Mercedes as the benchmark during pre-season testing, a moniker that Verstappen had firmly refuted.

Two race weekends in, this rejection appears to have been vindicated, and the Dutch driver said there has never been a point in which he felt Red Bull has had the match of Mercedes.

“You guys [the media] don’t know, I know!” he laughed.

“I never saw myself even close to Mercedes. But this week, it has been particularly bad.”

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The issue, he said, has been down to the lack of balance he’s feeling from the car, having labelled it “undriveable” during the weekend.

With Verstappen being the most vocal critic of the new F1 2026 regulations since their introduction, his negativity could be down to how difficult the RB22 is proving to be, believes Mercedes’ boss Toto Wolff.

“Max is really in a horror show,” he said on Sunday evening.

“When you look at the onboard that he has in qualifying [on Saturday], it’s just horrendous to drive.”

An audacious attempt to try something different in terms of strategy saw Red Bull plump for the soft tyres for Verstappen’s first stint, a gamble that backfired immediately as he fell to the back of the pack when the lights went out, before the tyres quickly went off due to graining.

But, even if he had gone for the medium or hard tyre, Verstappen said he didn’t believe any alternative would have made a difference to where he would have ended up in the pecking order.

“I think it wouldn’t have really mattered what tyre I would have put on,” he said.

“The hard tyre is not an option to start on. It’s more like medium or soft.

“I don’t think there was a big difference, because yesterday I had the same [graining] on the medium.

“For me, it’s not a surprise that we are not close to Mercedes, Ferrari, or McLaren.

“But this weekend was particularly bad. I hope we can be, of course, a little bit more competitive.”

Following the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix next week, the teams will have a month off due to the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix.

Unlike the enforced summer break, the teams will be able to carry out development as normal, albeit without any on-track verification of the work being carried out.

Verstappen said that he’s hopeful of the Milton Keynes-based squad being able to find some performance during this period of downtime, but acknowledged that the team’s immediate rivals won’t be doing similar.

“Not at the moment,” he said of whether he felt any tangible improvements between Australia and China.

“But I hope that after Japan, you have a few extra weeks to put a bit more performance on the car, but, at the same time, others are looking at performance, right?

“So it’s really not where we want to be. I know everyone is, of course, trying their best, and I think they are as frustrated with it as I am within the team.

“But yeah, we want to be better. Hopefully, we can already be a little bit better in Japan.”

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