It is less than a month since Max Verstappen qualified sixth at Monza and afterwards spoke about a Red Bull car made of paper. Admittedly, that comment specifically concerned the car degradation issue, and according to Verstappen and team principal Laurent Mekies, that issue can no longer be fully resolved in 2026.
Max Verstappen
But in terms of pure pace, significant steps have been made since those frustrations at Monza. Max Verstappen has finished on the podium at every race weekend since his crash at Zandvoort, and in Malaysia he has now secured his first pole of the year.
Max Verstappen has finished on the podium in no fewer than six of the last eight Formula 1 weekends, but one thing is still missing: a victory. Asked whether Red Bull's form is finally starting to look respectable, the Dutchman makes his ambition clear: It is true that we are scoring quite a few podiums now, but I want to win.
George Russell
Around here the track roughness is very high, so you will see probably quite a lot of degradation from the tyres and that also has a lot of influence on the deployment, Verstappen noted about the weekend's unknowns.
Tyre degradation looks extremely high, meaning that if you manage to cut it down through car set-up, it could make a massive difference. Once again, Red Bull made itself the one to beat as Verstappen showed very strong pace on an ultra-long run on medium tyres, while Isack Hadjar set a very good time on his quick lap.
George Russell also ran a very long stint on the softs, ending up averaging four tenths slower than the Dutchman. Telemetry reveals that Red Bull makes the difference in the second sector at Turns 5 and 6, where the RB22 harvests energy efficiently.
All things considered, it is very hard to pick a favourite for qualifying or the race, with the biggest wildcard in Malaysia remaining the weather.
Max Verstappen currently sits 6th in the drivers championship standings with 163 points.
Source: Motorsport
