Max from Japan: 'We have to be realistic'

Published on 26 March 2026 by Florence Cobben

Max Verstappen is preparing for the third race of the 2026 Formula 1 season in Japan. After a difficult start to the year, the Dutchman has a realistic but optimistic outlook towards the upcoming weekend in Suzuka.

Since the return of the Japanese Grand Prix to the Formula 1 calendar after the corona pandemic, only one driver has won here: Max Verstappen. The Dutchman, however, has a wary outlook on his chances this year: “I don’t really think about the previous years, because every year is different. We have to be realistic, of course, that we are nowhere near that kind of level anymore. I just go into the weekend, and see where we will be.”

Just before this race weekend, the FIA introduced a change to qualifying: drivers are now only allowed to recover eight megajoules of energy instead of nine. This is intended to reduce the role that battery management plays. According to Max, it won’t make a big impact: “Those are small changes, but next year we need bigger changes. It will make a small difference, but not much.”

During the press conference, much attention was paid to the NLS2 race that Max participated in last weekend on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Driving together with his teammates, the car seemed unstoppable, until a disqualification concerning a tyre issue robbed them of their first place trophy. Max: “Overall, it was a great weekend. We had a really good time, together with my teammates. Then of course we had a little mistake in qualifying when we were practicing the pitstops, where they then added another (tyre) set on the car. Besides that, of course in the race it’s very straight forward, where everyone just uses four new sets. Shame of course to lose it, but it does put the team on point. But for me overall, it’s been a very fun weekend.”

Asked to compare the experience of a GT-car with driving in Formula 1, Max replied: “Of course, a GT-car handles very different to a Formula 1-car – it moves around a lot more. It definitely requires you to drive differently, but this is something I’ve done for years on the simulator. So when I jumped into a GT-car, it didn’t feel shocking. It didn’t feel weird for me; I was prepared or it. Anything that you drive to the limit is difficult – if that is an F1-car or a GT-car. I just try to go as fast as I can.” But the day trip to Nordschleife did make Max visibly happy: “I wanted to do it for a while. It’s something I enjoy a lot. Every time I jumped out of the car I was smiling… that’s always a good thing.”

On that high point, Max turns to Formula 1. According to him, there’s still a lot of potential in the current Red Bull car. Max: “Like I said, there is a lot of potential in the car. We just need to understand a few things that have been going wrong – in the last race, for sure. We just need to keep working, keep trying, get more performance out of the car.” After Japan, there is a short break on the calendar because the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have been canceled. According to Max, that break comes at a good time. “The little break that we have now is a good time to look back and analyze even more things to try to be better in Miami.”