Max Verstappen Confesses Red Bull Has No Hopes of Winning 2026 Australian GP

Red Bull will run the new regulations of the 2026 season with their own in-house power unit, developed in collaboration with Ford. The Austrian outfit will have to manage expectations heading into the early races of the season. Now, Max Verstappen accepts how the constructor might not have a chance at winning the season opener in Australia.

Certainly, getting the challenger up and running during the early testing sessions is a massive achievement for the team in itself. Many people from the team were emotional following the success of their power units in the early testing. Still, the team has a lot of development to cover if it wants to go up against the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari as a works team.

Max Verstappen made an honest confession that Red Bull would not be fighting for the race wins from the get-go. The Dutchman is being realistic and isn’t hoping for a miraculous performance in the debut race of the Red Bull powertrains. Verstappen reckoned that the expectations were on par with their results so far, and the team was aware of not winning after just hitting the ground running in the first race.

If you look at performance, I do think we still need to make a step to truly compete at the front, Because at the moment, I don’t think we will be fighting for the win. You have to stay realistic. But it was also not our expectation that this would immediately be the case, with the introduction of these new regulations and with our own engine.

Max Verstappen said via Viaplay.

Despite the early indicators of not being able to win the early races in the 2026 season, Max Verstappen sees the positive side of things. He noted that it was quite special that so many things were under control for the team. The 28-year-old is delighted to have things going positively for the constructor, even after so many personnel and engine changes.

I still find it quite special that we had everything so well under control, with such a new engine and, in general, with so many new people joining. So from that perspective, I’m very happy.

Max Verstappen added.

Max Verstappen jokes Red Bull expected the power unit to ‘blow up’

Red Bull was utterly surprised on finding out the power unit worked out so well for them. Many of the rival teams were unable to perform as well as Milton Keynes did during the pre-season testing. Now, the Austrian constructor is believed to be on par with Mercedes, as they reportedly lead development heading into the season. Now, Verstappen jokes about the team’s expectations with the engine.

Max Verstappen pointed out that Red Bull did not expect such competitive performance from their engines. He joked that the rivals and even Milton Keynes thought that the engine would simply blow up and set the team much behind. As such, the team did an excellent job with their power unit, all things considered. Hence, Red Bull can be proud of the small victories before they start fighting for the race wins in the upcoming races.

That’s probably because they didn’t expect it either, they probably thought the engine would just blow up. So in that regard, we’ve simply done an excellent job and we have things well under control. We can definitely be proud of that. On the other hand, we know we still have work to do to find more power.

Max Verstappen noted.

The 2026 season will be extremely exciting as the pecking order for a majority of the teams will be shuffled. The top four contenders for the title still seem to be Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull. However, other teams can shock the paddock and achieve a much better start than anticipated under the new regulations in 2026.

Read More: Max Verstappen Exposes 2026 Red Bull Cars Major Weakness

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