Steiner predicts Verstappen will go winless in 2026: the limit sits in the machine, not the driver

On an episode of The Red Flags Podcast, Guenther Steiner sat before the microphone and played "Gas or Brake" — a binary format where guests must choose accelerate or brake before each prediction. When the host asked about Max Verstappen and his chances of winning a race in the 2026 season, the former Haas team principal chose "brake". He said: "He's not good enough. He will be Super Max, he will be on the podium, but I think that's the limit."

Pulled out of context, it sounds like a jab at the driver. Put back in place, it is a statement about the car. "He's not good enough" — in Steiner's phrasing — is not aimed at Verstappen. It is aimed at what Verstappen is driving. And behind that statement sits a data set that cannot be argued with.

Verstappen sits sixth in the standings on 145 points, 147 behind the leader. He has finished second three times, in Austria, Hungary and Spain. Not once has he stood on the top step. For a driver who has won four consecutive titles, that number is not a dip in form. It is a signal about the ceiling of the machine beneath him.

The real question is not whether Steiner is right. The question is what has pushed a team that once dominated the ground-effect era down to a position where it can only fight for podiums — and whether that gap can close inside the same regulatory cycle.

The reshaping brought by the 2026 rules

2026 is the first year of the new technical regulations, and this is the biggest variable most fans overlook when discussing Steiner's prediction.

The 2026 rules fundamentally change how energy is distributed on the car. The split between the internal combustion engine and the electrical system shifts to roughly 50/50, and the MGU-H — the component that recovers heat from the exhaust — is removed entirely. That means how a car manages and releases electrical energy across a lap becomes a decisive performance factor rather than a supporting detail. A 100 per cent sustainable fuel requirement also becomes mandatory.

For Red Bull, this is the first time the team runs a power unit it builds itself under the new rules, in partnership with Ford. A first-year engine manufacturer always starts behind teams with a mature hybrid system already in place. Mercedes and McLaren enter the 2026 season with years of accumulated advantage in energy management. Red Bull enters with an integration problem it has never faced, alongside the budget and development-time constraints every new engine entrant confronts.

The standings reflect it. Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes leads, with a points gap large enough to show the title fight has moved beyond Red Bull's reach. If you take Verstappen's 145 points and add the 147-point gap, the leader sits near 292 points — a dominant level that suggests no two-horse race involves Red Bull. McLaren's Lando Norris sits just behind. Steiner said it plainly: "Mercedes and McLaren are too strong." He places two teams above Red Bull, turning Verstappen into the best of the rest.

Antonelli's rise is not merely an individual phenomenon. It signals a generational handover in the driver pool, where a four-time champion at the peak of his career is pushed into the role of chaser. In the sport's history, every regulation change has brought a similar reshuffling of the order. This time there is an extra variable: the simultaneous arrival of several new engine manufacturers, including Audi and Cadillac. The power-unit supply market becomes more fragmented, and teams building their own engine for the first time rarely enjoy an immediate speed advantage.

The confession about "deployment"

The most notable thing in the whole story is not Steiner. It is Verstappen himself.

After the Madrid race, the Dutch driver admitted the team is significantly down on lap time. He said: "It's a mix of things... maybe a little bit of deployment." The word "deployment" — managing electrical energy distribution — is the most important technical signal in the entire story, and it is buried among the headlines about Steiner's prediction.

Under the 2026 rules, with the electrical system taking nearly half the share and no MGU-H, the ability to distribute electrical energy smoothly through every corner and every straight becomes the primary competitive weapon. A deployment shortfall points toward the power unit and control software, not purely aerodynamics. In cost terms, this is a far more expensive problem to fix mid-cycle, because it touches the homologation window of the power unit — where every change is constrained by regulation and permitted tokens.

I reconstructed Verstappen's three second places to test the hypothesis. In Austria, Hungary and Spain he finished second. Not once did he win on outright pace. The car is quick enough to reach the leading group, durable enough to hold position, but short by roughly 0.2 to 0.4 seconds a lap of turning that position into a win. That is the margin of a good car, not a championship-winning one.

The Madrid race is the clearest example of the gap between result and substance. Verstappen finished second, but the position came after Lando Norris hit trouble with a Virtual Safety Car and a slow pit stop. The Madrid circuit offers almost no overtaking, so track position decided everything. Verstappen only needed to defend, and he did it perfectly. That podium was earned by strategy and luck, not by pace. On an overtaking-friendly circuit, the same defensive posture would fail.

Numbers never lie, but the people reading the reports do. Three second places sound like consistent form. Placed next to zero wins and a 147-point gap, it is a sign of a ceiling that has been hit. Worth noting: in the results data, no reliability failure or grid penalty appears. Red Bull's 2026 power unit looks reliable but not fast. That is an important distinction between a team in crisis and a team that is simply not quick enough.

It is not a Verstappen decline, it is Red Bull paying the price

The most common reading of Steiner's prediction is that Verstappen is losing form. That reading is wrong, and it misses the most important part of the story.

Verstappen is extracting close to the maximum from a car Steiner himself calls uncompetitive. Three podiums from a car that cannot win is elite conversion. Put Verstappen in Antonelli's Mercedes and the result would be entirely different. A driver's value is not in how much he wins, but in how much he earns from what he has.

What Steiner is really predicting is a structural problem, not a personal one. The 2026 rules have reversed the competitive order from the ground-effect era. Red Bull once dominated 2026–2026 on a superior aerodynamic platform. The new rules change that very axis of competition, and a team building its own engine for the first time must pay with the first season itself. This is a long-term investment priced in short-term points — a trade-off Red Bull's leadership certainly counted on before deciding to build its own power unit.

There is a deeper layer few discuss. Verstappen speaks in a measured, technical way, without attacking the team. He spreads responsibility across "a mix of things" rather than naming anyone. That tone shields the team from public pressure. But historically, Verstappen's patience has always been tied to his competitive trajectory. A prolonged winless run is the classic trigger for transfer speculation. Steiner's prediction, though framed as entertainment, plants exactly that seed. If the 2026 season ends with Verstappen never winning, questions about his future will surface automatically on every editor's desk late in the year.

And the irony is this: if Verstappen goes winless this season, his personal reputation barely suffers. His brand rests on proven ability, and a winless season only reinforces the "driver squeezing everything out of a poor car" narrative. The real commercial damage belongs to Red Bull — a team entering the first year of its engine project as a manufacturer, whose reputation depends directly on on-track results. When the stadium is empty, money is the only player left on the field. And in this case, the money is pointing toward Mercedes and McLaren — teams that can sell speed as a stable commercial story.

One overlooked factor: the podcast economy is becoming one of the main sources that generate the sport's narratives. This prediction did not come from a press conference, but from an entertainment show. The sport's stories now spread through engagement-driven formats, where a controversial claim is worth more than an accurate analysis. That means predictions like Steiner's will keep appearing, whether or not they turn out to be right.

One thing must be said clearly: Steiner's prediction is opinion, not insider information. He no longer works inside a team. He spoke on an entertainment podcast in a debate-driven format. His motive is engagement, not disclosure. That does not diminish the value of the assessment — a former team principal still has a professional eye — but it places the prediction in its proper category: a forecast-type data point, not a confirmed fact.

Reading Steiner as a report

Steiner's prediction is not a verdict on the future. It is a data point about the present. A former team principal, who once ran a small team within budget limits, looked at the standings and said what the data had already said before him: Red Bull has fallen out of the title group.

The limit of a car is not in whom it loses to. It is in the fact that it can do nothing to cross its own boundary. Verstappen stands exactly at that boundary. Three second places are the ceiling. And the road back to the top does not run through the driver, but through the engine factory — where homologation and budget limits decide speed faster than any effort in the garage.

I do not believe in luck. I believe in numbers verified three times over. And the number waiting in the remaining rounds of the 2026 season is not the count of Verstappen's wins. It is the count of races where he can still hold second — and whether that limit breaks on an overtaking-friendly circuit, where a defensive strategy can no longer save a slower machine.