Max Verstappen: “Everything that could go wrong went wrong" in Chinese GP sprint

The Red Bull world champion failed to score points in the Shanghai sprint race

Max Verstappen was left with very few words after failing to score points in the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race, which continued a frustrating start to the 2026 Formula 1 campaign.

The four-time world champion finished ninth in the shortened contest at Shanghai, 0.3s behind the final points scorer Oliver Bearman, with problems from start to finish.

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Verstappen had qualified eighth, 1.7s off polesitter George Russell, claiming that his Red Bull was struggling for pace all over with “no grip, no balance, just losing massive amounts of time in the corners”.

A poor start then made matters worse as the Dutchman struggled for revs off the line, which initially dropped him to 13th, and Verstappen was simply unable to perform a comeback similar to last weekend.

At the Melbourne season opener he started 20th due to a Q1 crash but ultimately recovered to sixth, with Red Bull in a fight against McLaren for third in the pecking order behind Mercedes and Ferrari.

“I have not a lot of words at the moment, to be honest,” Verstappen told Sky Sports. “Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Start, of course, is one problem that we have to fix, but then after that the balance is all over the place.

“Probably the highest degradation of everyone out there, which is just uncontrollable. Plus some other bits on the car that were not, I would say, well prepared. We just need to get our stuff together.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

It was the first time that Verstappen had finished a sprint race outside of the points, as his 13 Saturday wins is 10 more than any other driver in the shortened contests.

So when he was then asked if he was surprised by the problems this weekend, Verstappen replied: “Yes, a little bit more than expected.”

The problems were present across both Red Bull cars though, as Verstappen’s team-mate Isack Hadjar qualified 10th but finished 15th following a lap-one incident with Kimi Antonelli.

The Mercedes driver suffered a start similar to Verstappen’s, which dropped him from second to ninth and, attempting to fight back, he understeered into Hadjar at the Turn 6 hairpin.

“Everything went to plan for the first sector and then Kimi completely outbraked himself and we had damage for the remainder of the race,” said Hadjar, who retired on his Red Bull debut last weekend after impressing with third in qualifying.

“So it was a bit painful to drive. We didn't learn anything. I had damage and I was defending against faster cars the whole way. It was annoying.”