Will Max Verstappen walk away from Formula 1 over the F1 2026 rules?

Max Verstappen looked relaxed and happy as he appeared at the Nurburgring on Saturday in a break between races in the F1 2026 calendar.

His subsequent disqualification for a tyre infringement only adds to the misery following a disappointing start to the new season for Red Bull…

Max Verstappen hit with Nurburgring DSQ as F1 quit fears rise

A version of this article originally appeared in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix

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Why were so many people urging Max Verstappen to make the move to Mercedes last year?

Precisely for weekends like last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix.

It was obvious three years ago that Max would be no fan of the 2026 rules, but a competitive car would have at least made them easier for him to stomach.

He doesn’t even have that right now as the optimism surrounding Red Bull in pre-season testing has drained away over the first two weekends of the new season.

Max Verstappen vs Isack Hadjar: Red Bull Racing head-to-head stats for F1 2026 season

F1 2026: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between teammates

F1 2026: Head-to-head race statistics between teammates

Of the world champions of the modern era, only Jenson Button in 2009 had the good sense to see his team’s dip coming and get out of there before it arrived.

An act of disloyalty it might have been, yet jumping from one stone to the next at the opportune moment is often necessary – sometimes to be encouraged – in a sport in which the sands shift every few years.

There was hope last summer that Verstappen might have learned from the tragedy of Sebastian Vettel, who stuck with Red Bull for a set of new engine regulations and promptly went off the edge of the cliff with the team in 2014.

Max’s performance clause, you say?

Wouldn’t have mattered. Contracts are made to broken and, at that level, the driver invariably gets what the driver wants.

And if Max wanted to drive a Mercedes in 2026, what was Red Bull going to do about it?

But, no, Verstappen ended up staying…

… And look where he is now: a second off the pace in qualifying in Shanghai; 47 behind the leader when he was called in to retire; staring down the barrel of the wasted year Jos should have been telling him to avoid at all costs.

He hates the rules. Found the car undriveable in China. Setup changes didn’t help. Every lap is survival. Can’t push because the car won’t let him.

Oh, and did he mention that he hates the rules?

With Aston Martin’s current woes taking that team out of serious contention for his signature for now, there remains a widespread assumption that there will be a Mercedes seat waiting for him whenever Max says the word.

Indeed, his upcoming Nurburgring 24 hours appearance behind the wheel of a Red Bull-branded Mercedes, announced a day after the Australian Grand Prix, has been regarded as the latest evidence of the burgeoning relationship between the two parties.

Yet what need would Mercedes have for Verstappen on the back of a successful 2026 if George Russell and Kimi Antonelli prove themselves capable of identical results in a dominant car?

What reason would there be to throw all that away – all the time and resource spent nurturing Russell and Antonelli to this point – just for Max, his eye-watering salary and the indisputable political edge brought to a team by the Verstappen camp?

This is why the perfect time for Max to make the move was last year when those lingering doubts about Russell and his world championship credentials were still alive.

And if he’s disillusioned by the new rules, takes zero joy from the act of driving the car and has no chance of winning anyway, what exactly is left to keep him around?

For the first time, now you can see how a sabbatical – taking a couple of years out to fulfil his dreams in endurance racing, leaving the door open to an F1 return when the regulations revert to something more palatable – could become the most appealing option available to him.

The next set of rules might not be designed to enhance the racing spectacle or tempt more manufacturers in, but simply to bring Max back.

A word of advice before F1 returns to Suzuka, the scene of one of Verstappen’s greatest feats of 2025, next weekend: cherish him while he’s still here.

It might not be for as long as you think.

‘It was just nice to see him smile’ – Max Verstappen suffers Nurburgring DSQ

Mercedes-AMG Motorsport and Verstappen.com published a joint statement on Instagram in the aftermath of the disqualification on Saturday evening.

It wasn’t so much the statement itself that stood out, but a comment below the line.

“It was just nice to see him smile,” wrote a fan. Couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

Whenever Verstappen has appeared at the Nurburgring over the last 12 months, there has been a sense of a weight being lifted from his shoulders.

This, increasingly it seems, is his place. His people. His style of racing.

No super clipping or energy management round here.

As he put it himself at the Nordschleife: “At least you can drive flat out without looking after the battery.”

Readers who have seen (who hasn’t?) the Senna documentary will recall the final scene in which Ayrton is asked to name his greatest rival and, after a moment’s thought, responds with the name Terry Fullerton.

Terry who? Exactly.

To Senna, Fullerton, a competitor from the karting days, embodied the purity and spirit of motor racing and a time in his life before Formula 1’s tentacles took hold.

The Nurburgring is Max’s answer to Fullerton.

He is made of this place. Nothing fills his lungs and brightens his blood like the cold air he breathes in the Eifel mountains.

It is, in other words, where he belongs.

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