Max Verstappen climbed out of his crashed Red Bull after qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix with no broken bones, but his view of Formula 1’s new rules remained unchanged.
The four-time world champion spun and hit the wall during his first flying lap in Melbourne. The crash ended his session before it properly began.
Soon after the medical team cleared him, Verstappen used the post-session media pen to repeat a message he has voiced since winter testing. He believes the 2026 Formula 1 regulations are flawed and are making the cars worse to drive.
“It’s going to be a long season,” he reckoned.
The crash, the X-rays and the immediate reaction
The moment came quickly. Verstappen approached Turn 1 on his first flying lap when the rear wheels of the RB22 locked under braking. The car spun at high speed and slammed into the wall, ending his qualifying run.
The Red Bull driver walked away without visible injury, but medical staff sent him for precautionary checks.
“Yeah, all good,” Verstappen said after the session, via RacingNews365. “I mean, I just had to get some X-rays done to see if my hands were OK, but nothing was broken.”
Once cleared, he described the strange moment that caused the crash.
“I just hit the pedal, and the whole rear axle just completely locked,” he said. “Especially with these Formula 1 cars, it’s very weird. I’ve never experienced that in my whole life. I have no idea where it comes from. I didn’t speak to the team yet.”
He later gave more details while speaking to Sky Sports F1.
“It went wrong before the downshift,” Verstappen said. “I hit the pedal and quickly downshift, but it was already locked on the peak of the brake pressure.”
Former F1 driver Martin Brundle, who was commentating for Sky Sports, said the incident did not look like a mistake from the driver.
“That’s not a driver error,” Brundle said on the broadcast. “You rarely see Max Verstappen make a fundamental error. He hit the brakes, and the rear axle just locked.”
Max Verstappen having no fun at all in 2026
With the crash still under review by the team, Verstappen turned the discussion back to the bigger issue he has raised since testing began: the new technical rules for 2026.
Reports earlier in the weekend said Verstappen had strongly criticised the cars during Friday’s drivers’ briefing. He sounded more upset that details from the meeting had leaked than about the reaction itself.
“It’s a bit weird that, you know,” Verstappen said, via The Race. “Drivers shouldn’t be speaking. That’s not very professional, I find, from the people involved.”
But he did not soften the message behind those remarks.
“I said how I thought about it,” he said. “I’m definitely not having fun at all with these cars. If you look at the onboard, you see enough.”
Verstappen has questioned the direction of the new rules for years. He first raised doubts after driving early versions in the simulator. His criticism grew louder after testing the RB22 during pre-season running in Bahrain.
The Dutch driver believes the new power unit formula pushes the sport away from racing. He has warned that the cars feel less natural and harder to manage under braking and acceleration.
“The formula is just not correct”
Verstappen said the issue goes deeper than one crash or one car setup. In his view, the entire rule package has a structural problem.
Formula 1 has said it may adjust energy harvesting and deployment limits during the season. Verstappen doubts those small changes will fix the bigger problem.
“You can only make it slower, and then you get a bit more of a normal speed trace,” he said. “But it’s a slower speed trace. The formula is just not correct.”
He believes the sport will eventually need larger changes.
When asked whether the rear axle locking could be tied to the new generation of cars, Verstappen gave a cautious reply.
“I don’t know,” he said. “There are so many things we need to look at, I think, in general as a sport.”
The results from qualifying added to his concern. Mercedes dominated the session, with George Russell on pole and rookie Kimi Antonelli alongside him. The next non-Mercedes car was nearly eight-tenths of a second slower.
Verstappen said he had expected that gap.
“I said in Bahrain, ‘Let’s wait and see in Melbourne, and you will see how fast they are,’” he said. “So for me, that’s not a surprise.”
He pointed to the margin to pole position as proof of how much work lies ahead.
“We know we have to improve the car and engine to fight Mercedes,” Verstappen noted. “We’re not here to be P3, P4, P5, P6. We’re here to win.”
That process, he warned, will take time.
“Step by step, hopefully we can get closer,” he said. “But it’s going to be a long season. That’s what I’m telling you.”
For a driver who has dominated Formula 1 for the past several years, the tone sounded different in Melbourne. The rules he has criticised are not changing soon, the gap to Mercedes looks real, and the season has only just begun.
