What Max Verstappen needs to turn 2026 around: F1 champion’s brutal four-word advice for Red Bull

One-time F1 world champion Jenson Button has provided Red Bull with some blunt, arguably completely unhelpful advice.

The team have struggled somewhat to start the 2026 campaign and kick off the new era of regulations, with both reliability and pace proving hard to come by in Australia and China.

If free practice is any indication, the pace certainly hasn't arrived in Japan either. While the topic of Verstappen's future in the sport has been covered extensively, it appears clear that the Dutchman is enjoying neither the driving style imposed by the new regulations nor running some way off the leaders' pace.

Asked by Sky Sports' returning presenter Natalie Pinkham what Red Bull can do to get things back on track, ahead of the Japanese GP, Button drew on his decades of experience as a racing driver to pull together an answer.

The searing insight that Sky pay big bucks for? That fans worldwide depend on? The answer to the issues which fans fear could see one of the sport's greatest ever drivers dip from his contract early?

“Build a faster car!”

It's a wonder that Laurent Mekies hasn't hired him to an advisory role already.

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Sky F1 pundits offer Red Bull solutions

“That’s basically it," Button continued. "They’re still all understanding the regulations, they’re still fine-tuning the cars… we’re going to see a lot of upgrades coming this year, more than normal, but also within the team I think there’s always space for improvement.”

His fellow former driver and Sky Sports pundit Karun Chandhok then weighed in on what could make Verstappen fall back in love with F1, adding: “I think we’re in a situation at the moment where the racing is very exciting, we saw some really creative overtaking moves, some interesting overtaking moves. Of course we saw some battery related moves in Shanghai, but I think the racing is actually quite good fun.

“Where the drivers are still a bit frustrated is qualifying, because they feel like they’re not driving the cars to the absolute limit of their abilities so there’s some tweaks this weekend. We know the FIA made some changes to the energy, it's a journey that the sport is on…

"Maybe that will come back to people like Max, people like Charles, who have been a little bit critical about the way the cars feel in qualifying. As a driver I appreciate it’s frustration, but on the flip side, it is what it is, it’s the same rules for everybody and as Jenson said, you’ve got to figure out how best to take advantage of it.

“I think for Max and Red Bull, there was so much talk about them being a new powertrains manufacturer, but actually the chassis side seems to be struggling a little bit.”

So there you have it. Design a better chassis, get over the rule changes, stop whining, and build a faster car. We should see the whole situation reversed in days.

READ MORE: Verstappen reacts after disqualification heartbreak'

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