Article by Daniel Grigore – Published Saturday, March 14, 2026, 09:37 / Updated Saturday, March 14, 2026 09:37
Max Verstappen (28 years old) failed to rank in the points in the sprint race in China. The Red Bull Racing driver, multiple world champion, crossed the finish line ninth.
It was a nightmare race for the Dutchman, started in the worst possible way. Verstappen did not start properly and dropped to the tail of the standings, from that moment the mission to finish in the points became a chimera.
Verstappen subsequently began to make his way through the peloton, only to pit for a tire change on lap 13, under a yellow flag and with the Safety Car about to intervene.
There were three laps left after the restart. Verstappen gained a few more positions, but stopped one short of the points zone in 9th place.
Max Verstappen, nightmare race in China: “Everything that could go wrong went wrong! Disaster”
In the Sky interview after the race, he said that “everything that could go wrong did go wrong”.
“The start is a problem that we have to solve, but then the balance was terrible. We probably had the biggest degradation of all of them, which is simply uncontrollable. In addition, some parts of the car were not prepared in the best possible way. We just have to pull ourselves together,” added Max, as quoted by sportal.bg.
Separately, at the official reaction for F1, he commented: “I had no strength at all [la start]probably just like Liam did [Lawson] in Melbourne. But even after that, sure, I was able to gain a few positions, but the balance was terrible, the tires degraded faster than those around me. So yeah… A disaster“.
8 pointshas Verstappen after two races, the Australian Grand Prix (8) and the Chinese sprint (zero)
Ranking in the sprint race and related points
