Max Verstappen rages at Red Bull: 'Everywhere is just s***'

Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen rages at Red Bull: 'Everywhere is just s***'

Max Verstappen was not happy during FP3

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Saturday 28 March 2026 06:20

Four-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen raged at his Red Bull team at the Japanese Grand Prix, claiming that the car was 's***' all around the track.

Verstappen and Red Bull have had a dismal start to the year, with reliability issues and a lack of pace clouding their early season ventures.

The Dutchman has only been able to claim eight points from two race weekends so far, and is already 43 points off the top of the championship.

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And any hopes that Red Bull would provide him with a quicker car for this weekend's Japanese Grand Prix appeared to go out of the window in FP3 on Saturday morning.

Verstappen finished down in eighth in the session, and was left bemused by the performance of his RB22, namely the downshift problems that he was facing.

Near the end of the session, Verstappen spoke to race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase on team radio, asking: "What is going on with the shifts again over one lap? It's just horrendous the downs."

Lambiase then asked in response: "Give me the corner please, Max," to which Verstappen replied with a fiery: "Everywhere, everywhere is just s***!"

The downshifts were something that Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad also struggled with on Friday, suggesting that it could be a Red Bull power unit issue, with both cars using the new Red Bull-Ford engines.

Red Bull making up for lost time

Following the dismal opening two race weekends, Red Bull will have to be right on it in Japan to avoid their rivals opening up a significant gap on them in the standings.

Red Bull started off slowly in 2025, but Verstappen's ability to grind out results meant that he stayed within touching distance of his rivals before launching an end of season attack for the championship, finishing just two points behind Lando Norris in the end.

The Dutchman won the 2025 Japanese GP with a sublime drive, but that does not look like a possibility this year, with Red Bull clearly still struggling with their power unit.

The team have just 12 points between Verstappen and Isack Hadjar from the first two race weekends.

F1 Red Bull Max Verstappen Japanese Grand Prix