F1 2026: Max Verstappen 'ditched his sim for Mario Kart' as new regs hit hard

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Australia, 2026 — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 2026 Regulations

Max Verstappen 'ditched his sim for Mario Kart' as new F1 regs hit hard

The four-time world champion hates the new regulations

Graham Shaw Consultant Editor

Digital sports specialist running global brands for 30 years

Thursday 12 March 2026 16:00

He may well have been joking, but with Max Verstappen and F1's controversial new regulations you can never truly be sure in 2026.

The four-time world champion has been extremely vocal in his criticism of the new regs, which came into force for last weekend's season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. He believes they take the fun out of driving and mean it is now all about 'management'.

Verstappen started behind the eight ball at Albert Park after crashing in Qualifying, but roared through the field on Sunday to eventually finish P6.

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Now the show moves on to Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix, and the Dutchman spoke with media at the track on Thursday. Of course the new regs were front and centre again, and Verstappen joked that he has a genius hack to help him work everything out.

When asked if drivers who spend a lot of time in simulators have an advantage when it comes to energy management, he provided a very Verstappen answer.

Max 'swapped his sim for Mario Kart'

"Finding the mushrooms is going quite well. The blue shell is a bit more difficult, but I’m working on it."

Verstappen is pretty clear that Red Bull is behind Mercedes and Ferrari right now and on a normal day P5 is the best he can hope for. But he does agree there is the potential for improvement as that new power unit partnership with Ford properly beds in.

"Yeah, I mean, for sure there is a lot of potential. It’s just going to depend, of course, on if we can extract that, I guess, throughout the year. The gap, of course, was quite big and also in the race. I think if I would have started, let’s say, a little bit up front, I think the best that I could have done was one spot higher because we didn’t have the pace of the top four cars.

"We also had a lot of degradation and graining. But yes, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens in the coming races, if we can close that gap a little bit."

Will Red Bull be closer to the front in China?

Verstappen was also asked if the gap to the front two teams was specific to Melbourne, or whether it will be the same in China.

"Impossible to know. I mean, honestly, it’s such a jungle out there at the moment," he admitted.

"I think that it’s very hard to really know. I mean, I would hope that it gets a bit closer, not even bigger than the gap that it was in Melbourne, but it’s clear that at the moment we cannot fight with those cars."

Max Verstappen Red Bull 2026 regulations Chinese Grand Prix