It would be unwise to view Verstappen’s remarks to BBC 5 Live pit-lane reporter Jennie Gow after the Japanese Grand Prix as primarily intended as leverage.
Verstappen would like F1 to change the rules, but that is because he has a fundamental, almost primal, objection to what they have done to the cars.
The Red Bull driver is talking from the heart. He has been saying similar things not just since the start of this season, but since he first tried the 2026 cars in the simulator a couple of years ago.
He does not like the way the power tails off in the later part of straights as the electrical motor runs out of power and starts to regenerate energy.
On the more energy-starved tracks, he does not like the way drivers have to lift and coast before braking to recover energy in qualifying. This has been commonplace in races for many years, it should be pointed out.
Because both these situations reduce the terminal speed of a car before the driver starts the corner-entry phase of braking and turning – which is the core test for a racing driver – they also reduce the challenge.
And in some cases, they are reducing the demands of high-speed corners, as they are being used to recover.
He does not like the artificiality of the racing with the overtake mode and boost buttons. Or perhaps more precisely, he does not like the massive offset in power they give one car over another.
There is, of course, without question, a superficial – and in many ways genuine – appeal to the kind of battling this has created, where cars repeatedly swap position as one and then the other benefits from the overtake mode before finally they settle down.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is not the only driver to say he “actually enjoys these cars for the racing bit”. It’s exciting to watch, too, at least when it leads to genuine racing into corners, as between the Ferrari drivers in China, rather than simply ‘drive-bys’ on the straights.
But there is a whole other level of complexity baked into the rules by the FIA in an attempt to lessen some of what it perceived to be the problems created by the fundamental energy-starved nature of the cars.
All this has done is created a bunch of other consequences that are “anti-driving”, as Verstappen would put it, such as limited power modes, or snaps of oversteer leading to drops in electrical energy, “zero-kilowatt zones” where no electrical power is deployed, and so on.
Some of this will likely have to be unpicked to improve the situation in qualifying.
The interview Verstappen gave on Sunday was extraordinary. Not just for its openness, honesty and eloquence, but also for the fact he was happy to keep talking beyond the usual limits.
F1’s guidelines restrict broadcasters to two questions in the ‘pen’ after a race. But Jennie sensed Verstappen’s mood, and kept going, asking five in total. Anna Webster, Verstappen’s PR handler at Red Bull, realised he wanted to keep talking, so let them carry on.
The result was a profound insight into Verstappen’s state of mind.
The issue for the four-time world champion – and he knows it – is that while the teams and rule makers are determined to improve the situation this year, especially in making qualifying more on the limit, there is only so much that can be done in the context of the engines.
Next year, bigger changes may come – but that requires agreement on one level or another among the stakeholders, many of whom have competing agendas.
As Verstappen put it after qualifying on Saturday: “It depends what they decide for next year, I think.
“For this year I know they are trying their best, but it’s also political, right, which I fully understand of course from other manufacturers. Rightly so. I’m not bitter about that or anything.
“It’s also not about me being in the position that I am in terms of seventh to 11th or 12th. I just hope that it will be just a little bit more fun to drive, as you know.
“But of course for this year it will be tiny little changes that doesn’t really make a big difference. I just hope that the changes are big enough for next year.”
