Max Verstappen narrowly misses out on victory: What’s next for the upcoming Grands Prix?

What had Max Verstappen’s manager, Raymond Vermeulen, said ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix? “A driver like Max Verstappen wasn’t born to finish fifth or sixth.”

But then, starting from fifth on the grid, the four-time Formula 1 champion put in a breathtaking performance: In the first part of the Grand Prix, Verstappen went after his rivals as if the race were only ten laps long; this was followed by a phase of tyre conservation, and finally, race leader George Russell had to be incredibly careful not to be overtaken by the charging Verstappen.

In the end, Max fell 1.611 seconds short of his 72nd Grand Prix victory (his first since Abu Dhabi 2025), but Verstappen can take a lot of heart from his second podium finish of 2026 (following P3 in Montreal). The latest improvements to his race car have really paid off.

Verstappen said: “The first few laps with all those battles were great fun, then I switched to tyre-saving mode. We had a few minor issues in the second half of the race, but all in all I can be very satisfied – we almost won.”

“For the first time this year, I felt that I could really be in the running for the win. Unfortunately, that’s when the problems cropped up. I don’t know what happened – bumps in the track, traction, hitting the kerb – all of a sudden it all became quite tricky, and the good balance was gone. We’ll have to take a close look at that.”

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“I also had brake problems, which I hadn’t experienced in practice. You adapt to difficulties like that, but it wasn’t ideal. We’ll get to the bottom of all that in the analysis.”

Just missing out on victory in Austria gives him confidence for Silverstone. Max says: “We’re taking it one race at a time. Everyone knows I love Silverstone, but when I did a virtual lap of the circuit in the new generation of race cars, I had to laugh – it feels like a completely different track. The battery power isn’t even enough for a single lap. It’ll be very different from what all the drivers are used to.”

“The key thing is: here at the Red Bull Ring, you’ve got long straights followed by heavy braking zones, so you’ve got plenty of opportunities to recharge the battery. At Silverstone, however, you’ve got long straights with lots of fast corners; that’s not enough to recharge, and if you can’t manage it somehow, you’ll run out of juice by the end of the lap. The drivers will struggle there.”

What needs to happen for Verstappen to be a regular contender for victories? Max: “We need an all-rounder of a racing car. And a car that’s less prone to glitches. Because there are still a whole host of issues that tend to go on behind the scenes. We’re looking into all of that, and I hope we’ll sort it out soon. But we’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us.”