Red Bull RB22 Formula 1 car on track in 2026 during Max Verstappen's winless run

Max Verstappen 2026: 15 Races Winless, Then Back-to-Back

October 17, 2026

Oct 17, 2026 · 6 min read·

Max Verstappen in 2026: 15 Races Without a Win, Then Back-to-Back

Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Formula 1 feature. There is no Grand Prix this weekend, so we are using the gap to tell the story the standings table does not: how a four-time champion went from the worst stretch of his career to the form driver of the season.

Red Bull RB22 Formula 1 car at speed during the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix weekend, the early part of Max Verstappen's winless run — The Red Bull RB22 early in 2026, back when Max Verstappen could not get it to do what he wanted. (Photo: Liauzh, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Short Version

Max Verstappen lost the 2025 world championship by two points. Then Formula 1 changed every rule for 2026, Red Bull built its own engine for the first time, and the man who had won a race in every season since 2016 went 15 straight Grands Prix without a victory. Then he won at Sepang. Then he won everything in Singapore. The title is almost certainly gone, and he is suddenly the fastest driver in the paddock anyway.

Two Points, and Then the Floor Fell Out

Start at the end of last year, because you cannot understand this season without it. Verstappen won four of the final six races of 2025, including the Abu Dhabi finale from pole. He still lost. Lando Norris finished third that day and took the championship by two points, 423 to 421. That is the closest a driver has come to a title and missed in years, and Verstappen had to stand there and watch it.

Then the sport reset itself. The 2026 regulations brought new cars and new power units, and Red Bull went from buying engines to building them with Ford. Being a first-year engine manufacturer and a championship team at the same time is a brutal ask. The RB22 was unpredictable under braking and awkward to balance, and Verstappen spent the spring driving a car that was fighting him in every corner.

You could see it in the results. Sixth in Melbourne after starting 20th. A retirement in China. Eighth at Suzuka, a track he owns. By midseason he had a pile of podiums and nothing on the top step.

Fifteen Races, and the Clock Running Out

Here is the number that tells you how strange 2026 got: Verstappen had not gone a full season without winning a race since 2015, his rookie year. Not once in a decade. By the time the paddock reached Azerbaijan in late September, he was 14 races into the season with zero wins, and the question was no longer about the championship. It was about whether he would be shut out entirely.

Baku was the cruelest version of it. He finished second. George Russell beat him by 0.196 seconds. Close enough to taste, not close enough to count. It was his longest winless run since 2017, when he was still a kid in a Red Bull that kept breaking.

Red Bull Formula 1 car on track at Sepang International Circuit during the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, the race that ended Max Verstappen's winless run — Red Bull at Sepang for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, the rain-hit race that finally ended the drought. The car shown is Isack Hadjar's. (Photo: Liauzh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

What Actually Changed

Two things, and neither was magic. Red Bull brought a significant upgrade package to Baku at Round 15, the last meaningful one it plans for this season. And the engine got better without any new hardware at all, because the 2026 rules freeze most of it. The gains came from calibration and energy management, which is a technical way of saying the team got smarter about how it deploys the battery.

Verstappen's own description of the difference was simple. "Our car has taken a really nice step forward," he said. "It's just been more driveable and more predictable."

Team principal Laurent Mekies, who signed his own extension through 2031 three days after Singapore, gave the driver the credit. "His technical sensitivity is outstanding, probably without any equivalent," Mekies said, calling Verstappen's input "a massive boost for the chassis development and a massive boost to the PU development."

Happy Hour Racing original graphic. Figures from FIA classifications and the 2026 season results.

The Weekend That Made It Official

Sepang ended the drought. Singapore made a statement. Verstappen took pole for the sprint, won the sprint, took pole for the Grand Prix, and led all 62 laps to win by 7.3 seconds over Charles Leclerc. He is the only driver in 2026 to win both the sprint and the Grand Prix on the same weekend.

The round numbers landed on top of each other. It was his 250th Grand Prix start, his 50th career pole, and his 73rd win. It was also the first time he had ever won at Marina Bay in ten tries, which left exactly one circuit on the current calendar where he has not won: the Madring in Madrid, where he finished second in its first running this year.

On pole for the 50th time in his 250th Grand Prix #F1 #SingaporeGP
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 10, 2026

VERSTAPPEN WINS THE SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX!! That's Max's first win around the Marina Bay Street Circuit #F1 #SingaporeGP
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 11, 2026

So What Is It Worth Now

Honestly, not a championship. Kimi Antonelli has 340 points. Verstappen has 221 and sits fourth, behind Antonelli, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Six races remain and 150 points are on the table, so the math technically keeps him alive, but it would take a collapse nobody expects. Antonelli can even wrap the title in Austin next weekend if he wins and the results above him fall a certain way.

What the wins are worth is everything else. Red Bull sits fourth in the constructors' standings, seven points behind McLaren with third place genuinely in play. Verstappen re-signed with the team through 2030 back in August, ending a year of McLaren rumors. And the last six races are now a live audition for 2027, with Austin first on the list, a track where he has four wins in ten starts. If you want the circuit itself, we broke down Circuit of the Americas by the numbers earlier this week.

The Fan Debate

Here is the argument worth having at the bar. Does a late surge in a lost season mean anything, or is it a fast car arriving too late to matter? One camp says momentum is a myth and only December counts. The other says this is exactly how 2025 ended, with Verstappen winning everything in sight, and that Red Bull spent the winter believing it before the rules reset wiped it out. Six races settle part of it. Next spring settles the rest.

The Bottom Line

Max Verstappen is going to finish 2026 without a championship for the second straight year, and he is going to finish it as the fastest man on the grid. Those two sentences should not fit together. In this season, they do.