Guenther Steiner Predicts Max Verstappen Won't Win in 2026
Guenther Steiner has never been one for soft landings, and he’s just delivered another jolt to the Formula 1 paddock: he doesn’t think Max Verstappen will win a single grand prix in 2026.
Not one.
The former Haas team principal, speaking on The Red Flags Podcast after the Spanish Grand Prix, was asked in the show’s “Gas or Brake” segment whether Verstappen would end the 2026 season winless. Steiner didn’t hesitate.
“Gas, he will not,” he said. “Mercedes and McLaren are too strong, and it's just the car. He's not good enough. He will be Super Max, he will be on the podium, but I think that's the limit. That's the limit of that car.”
It was classic Steiner: blunt, provocative, and aimed straight at the heart of a narrative that once felt unthinkable — Verstappen, a four-time world champion, reduced to chasing scraps while others dictate the pace.
From Dominance to Damage Limitation
The numbers tell their own story. Verstappen sits sixth in the 2026 standings on 145 points, a hefty 147 behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli. His ceiling so far? Three second places — in Austria, Hungary and Spain. No wins. No real sniff of one on pure pace.
In Madrid, he had to live on opportunism. Starting behind polesitter Lando Norris, Verstappen pounced when Norris’ race unravelled under a poorly timed virtual safety car and a slow pit stop. On a tight, unforgiving new layout where overtaking was almost fantasy, Verstappen did what he could: grabbed track position and refused to give it back.
Second place, but not a second of illusion. Red Bull had been beaten on speed.
Verstappen: ‘We Are Quite a Bit Down Still’
Speaking to Sky Sports after the race, Verstappen cut a realistic figure. No theatrics, just a cold read of the stopwatch.
“It's just looking at the lap times, we are quite a bit down still,” he said. “It's a mix of a lot of things, for sure maybe a little bit of deployment, but also the car itself that we still need to improve on, because when Lando was behind me he was flying. He was a lot faster, but just because of the nature of the track he couldn't get by.”
That line — “he was flying” — slices straight through any idea that Red Bull are a tweak or two away from their old supremacy. On a circuit where track position is king, Verstappen could defend. On a normal track, with real passing zones, Norris’ pace advantage would have been brutal.
Steiner’s claim that Mercedes and McLaren are “too strong” is rooted in exactly that kind of race. Verstappen is still extracting podiums from a car that doesn’t belong at the front, but he’s doing it in survival mode, not with the swagger of a man who once bent entire seasons to his will.
A Different Kind of Max
The most jarring part of Steiner’s verdict wasn’t the prediction of a winless season. It was the line, “He's not good enough.”
Taken in isolation, it sounds like a dismissal of a driver many regard as one of the most complete of his generation. In context, Steiner was hammering home a different point: even a driver of Verstappen’s calibre can only drag a car so far. “Super Max” might still live on the podium, but the top step, in Steiner’s eyes, is beyond the reach of this Red Bull package.
For a man who watched Verstappen shred records during Red Bull’s dominant run, that’s a stark recalibration of expectations.
Baku and Beyond
The calendar rolls on regardless. The 15th round of the 2026 season, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, lands on 24–26 September at the Baku City Circuit — a place where chaos, walls and safety cars often tear up the form book.
It’s the kind of venue where a sharp operator in a slightly slower car can still steal something big.
If Steiner is right, Verstappen won’t convert any of those chances into a win this year. If he’s wrong, Baku, with its long straights and razor-edge margins, is exactly the sort of place where a four-time champion might choose to start proving him wrong.
