Max Verstappen has spent most of 2026 warning that Formula 1's new rules were blunting the sport. Arriving at the Hungaroring for the last race before the summer break, the Red Bull driver argued the criticism he was once dismissed for is now being echoed up and down the grid - and he sharpened it into one specific complaint: the fastest drivers are no longer allowed to make a difference.
Verstappen told media in Budapest that the reaction to his early-season objections had shifted. "I've spoken my mind about these regulations already a long time," he said. "In the beginning most people were saying, 'ah, he's complaining, he should shut up'. But I have to say that the last few races, more and more people are seeing the same thing that I could see coming already a long time ago." He was keen to stress the point wasn't about results: "And it's not about me not winning anymore, it's just because I care about the product."
The heart of his argument is what the 2026 power unit rewards. With energy deployment now decisive over a lap, Verstappen says carrying more speed through a corner can actively cost a driver on the following straight. "It's just your throttle input. By being faster sometimes in the corner, you lose more in the straight afterwards, which, of course, is not how it should be," he explained. "In every kind of racing series, if you gain time in the corner, that's just free lap time. You would not then be penalised on the straight, normally."
That, he believes, is why team-mates have been so tightly matched this season. "It's basically just neutralising a lot of lap time... sometimes you cannot make a difference," Verstappen said. "You're not allowed to make a difference because it will just penalise you on the next straight." He also walked back a barbed line from Spa about people who might "shoot" him for speaking out: "No, I was joking about that one."
He is no longer a lone voice. Oscar Piastri, fighting at the front for McLaren, defended George Russell's blunt criticism after a torrid Spa weekend and put his own name to the complaint. "When you've got qualifying grids decided by computers behaving or misbehaving, that is a pretty crap way of going racing," Piastri told reporters including RacingNews365, conceding Russell was "obviously going to exaggerate it and make it look a lot worse" but backing the substance of it. The problem that wrecked Russell's Spa - running out of deployable battery energy on the straights - is precisely the trade-off Verstappen describes.
Not everyone is sympathetic. Lando Norris pushed back hard on the same debate earlier in the year, when Verstappen first branded the cars "anti-racing" during pre-season testing in Bahrain. "A lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, if he wants to retire, he can retire," Norris said of his rival's threat to walk away. The McLaren driver argued the cars were a challenge to be embraced rather than a grievance. "We get paid a stupid amount of money to drive, so you can't really complain at the end of the day," he said. "Any driver can go and find something else to do - it's not like he has to be here."
The rule-makers have already conceded ground, agreeing to rebalance the engine formula toward the internal combustion engine for both 2027 and 2028. At the Hungaroring, an energy-rich circuit, Verstappen expects the deployment lottery to matter less than it did at Silverstone and Spa. His broader point isn't going away - and by his own account, fewer people are now telling him to shut up.
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*Originally published on [NewsFormula One](https://newsformula.one/article/verstappen-f1-2026-wont-let-the-fastest-drivers-make-a-difference). Visit for full coverage.*