Max Verstappen made to wait for fix to Red Bull’s ‘complex’ F1 problem

Max Verstappen faces a wait for Red Bull to fix the most “complex” problem that has recurred throughout the 2026 Formula 1 season. 

Verstappen and Red Bull team-mate Isack Hadjar were left frustrated after they both made poor starts and lost ground on the opening lap of Sunday’s United States Grand Prix. 

Four-time world champion Verstappen was overtaken by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc through the opening sequence of corners, while Hadjar immediately fell behind both Ferraris as he dropped from third on the grid. 

Both Verstappen and Hadjar also had to contend with radio issues that made it more difficult to communicate with the Red Bull pitwall. Despite a troubled race, Verstappen still finished third, while Hadjar took fifth. 

In terms of the radio woes Red Bull has been facing, the team is confident of finding a solution fairly soon. 

"We are all frustrated to struggle for the second race in a row with the radio issues. It’s making everyone's lives very difficult,” Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said. 

"So, it is true that it's something that we would like to fix quite quickly, because it's an item that should be working without using too much of our energy.”

However, when it comes to Red Bull’s start problem, that will require a longer-term fix that may not be introduced until next season. 

"The start is a slightly more complex issue to solve, meaning that the start performance is going across pretty much all the departments of the company, probably except aerodynamics," Mekies explained.

"It's engine, it's gearbox, it's clutch, it's many things. We have certainly seen from the beginning of the season that we are not the benchmark in terms of launch performance.

"As much as we have reduced the gap to competition, and you may remember how bad our starts were at the beginning of the year, we are still not the benchmark.

"The fact that the car in the meantime improved a lot and is fighting closer to the front makes that deficit even more painful now, because competition around us is very strong.

"On one side, I'm confident that we will continue to reduce the gap to the competition from now to the end of the year, because every race we learn, every race we come up with small ways to close the gap.

"On the other side, I equally know that we will not be the benchmark before the end of the season, that it will require significant design and hardware changes, and that this is something that we will see only next year."