Steiner predicts Verstappen will go winless in 2026 as Red Bull struggles persist

Guenther Steiner has predicted that Max Verstappen will finish the 2026 Formula 1 season without a single grand prix victory, arguing that Red Bull’s car simply cannot match the pace of McLaren and Mercedes.

The former Haas team principal made the bold call on The Red Flags Podcast following the Spanish Grand Prix, responding to a direct question about whether Verstappen would end the year winless. “Gas, he will not. Mercedes and McLaren are too strong, and it’s just the car,” Steiner said. “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.”

Verstappen currently sits sixth in the drivers’ championship with 145 points — 147 adrift of leader Kimi Antonelli. His best results in 2026 have been three second-place finishes, at the Austrian, Hungarian, and Spanish Grands Prix.

The Spanish result illustrated the challenge facing the four-time champion. In Madrid, Verstappen inherited track position after polesitter Lando Norris was caught out by an ill-timed virtual safety car and a slow pitstop. With overtaking almost impossible on the new circuit, Verstappen held on for second — but the underlying pace gap was plain to see.

Speaking after the race, Verstappen acknowledged the deficit himself. “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.”

Steiner’s assessment aligns with what the numbers are already showing: Red Bull has yet to visit the top step of the podium in 2026, and the gap to the front appears structural rather than circuit-specific. Whether the team can close it before the season concludes at Baku on 24-26 September remains the central question of Verstappen’s title defence.