Max Verstappen Winless in 2026 as a 19-Year-Old Leads F1
The Happy Hour Racing Formula 1 Feature. Formula 1 is between races until the Dutch Grand Prix on August 23, so we are digging into the storyline that has quietly defined the whole season.
The Short Version
Max Verstappen has started 11 races in 2026 and won none of them. The four-time world champion sits sixth in the standings with 109 points while a 19-year-old, Kimi Antonelli, leads the championship with six wins. Formula 1 comes back at Zandvoort on Sunday, August 23, and the biggest question of the season is no longer who wins the title. It is whether the driver who owned the last five years can win a single race.
The number that defines 2026 is zero
Verstappen has 71 career wins in 244 starts. He won the last race of 2025 at Abu Dhabi on December 7. He has not won since.
Eleven races without a victory ties the longest winless run of his career since 2017, matching an 11-race stretch he had in 2020. The difference is that the 2020 run happened in a car nobody expected to win in. This one is happening to a driver who won 21 races in a single season three years ago.
Red Bull as a team is winless too. The last time the team failed to win any of the opening 11 races of a season was 2015. The RB22 is the problem. The car has been reported to be roughly 9 to 10 kilograms overweight and it struggles through high-speed corners, which is exactly where Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren have found their pace under the new rules.
Verstappen is still dragging the thing places it does not deserve to go. He has four podiums, including second at the Red Bull Ring and second in Hungary before the break. He has also retired three times, in China, Monaco and at Silverstone. Take away the reliability and he is still nowhere near a win.
The team has not hidden what comes next. Reports say most of Red Bull's development budget is now aimed at the 2027 car, which is another way of saying this season is a write-off. Verstappen still has eight races to avoid the first fully winless season of his Red Bull career, and the first of those is his home race.
Delfts blauw for Zandvoort's last dance. Max's home race helmet just landed. #F1 || #DutchGP
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) August 14, 2026
The kid who took the sport over
Kimi Antonelli has 219 points and six wins. He won five in a row from China through Monaco, and he added Spa after that. When he won in Japan he became the youngest driver ever to lead the Formula 1 world championship.
His lead over second place is 50 points. Second place is Lewis Hamilton.
Antonelli turns 20 on August 25, two days after the Dutch Grand Prix, so the teenage-champion storyline quietly expires at Zandvoort. He would still be the youngest champion in the sport's history by a wide margin. Sebastian Vettel and Verstappen both won their first titles at 23.
Five wins in-a-row, a Grand Slam on the streets of Monaco, and the youngest ever championship leader. Yeah... Kimi Antonelli has had a pretty good 2026 so far! #F1
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 14, 2026
Five storylines that define the season
The veterans who got left behind
Fernando Alonso has one point. Not one win, not one podium. One point, from a 10th place at Monaco. He is 45 years old, he has two world championships, and Aston Martin has scored exactly that one point as a team all season. Only Cadillac sits below them.
Alonso has said publicly that the team is around six months behind its midfield rivals in development, and Aston Martin brought 16 upgrades to Hungary trying to fix it. He has also refused to blink. Asked about his level, he said he is the best and does not need to prove it.
Cadillac's debut season has been just as hard on two other veterans. Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas, both 36, both former grand prix winners, are on zero points. Pérez's best finish is 14th. Bottas has a 13th. New teams do not get grace periods in this sport.
This is not really a story about age
Here is the part that ruins the easy narrative. The second-place driver in the championship is 41 years old.
Lewis Hamilton has 169 points and a win at Barcelona in his second season with Ferrari. Nico Hülkenberg is 39 and has scored. Meanwhile Arvid Lindblad, a 19-year-old at RB, has 23 points, and Isack Hadjar has 68 in the seat next to Verstappen.
So the split is not old against young. The 2026 rules reset wiped out five years of accumulated advantage and handed everyone a blank sheet, and the teams that read the new page fastest were Mercedes and Ferrari. Mercedes has eight wins and 379 constructors' points. Red Bull has 177 and no wins. Everything else follows from that.
The drivers who look finished mostly are not finished. They are in the wrong cars at the worst possible moment in a rules cycle. Verstappen at 28 is still the same driver who was untouchable in 2023. He is just holding a worse steering wheel.
The fan debate
Ask any group of fans this and watch it split down the middle. If Verstappen goes the whole of 2026 without a win, does it change how you rank him among the all-time greats, or does dragging a bad car to four podiums prove more than another dominant season would have?
The counter-question is just as good. If a 19-year-old wins the title in his second full season, is that the arrival of a generational talent, or is it the best car on the grid doing what the best car does? George Russell is in the same machinery and sits third, 59 points behind his teammate, which suggests it is at least partly the driver.
The Bottom Line
Formula 1 spent five years watching one man win everything. In 2026 that man has not won at all, and the championship belongs to someone who was 13 years old when Verstappen took his first title. The Dutch Grand Prix on August 23 is Verstappen's home race and the last one Zandvoort will hold. Eight races remain to answer whether this is a bad season or the end of an era.
Shop the story
Zandvoort is next and it is the circuit's last Formula 1 weekend. If you want something on the shelf for it, here is what is in stock right now:
- Red Bull Racing Max Verstappen RB16B Dutch GP 1:18 Model Car from Minichamps, built from the car he won in at Zandvoort.
- Red Bull Racing Official Formula 1 Hoodie in grey for the fans still flying the flag through a rough year.
- Mercedes AMG Petronas Team Polka Dot Polo in black, for the team leading both championships.
- Mercedes AMG Petronas George Russell 1:2 Scale Helmet, a proper display piece.
- Scuderia Ferrari Garage Crew T-Shirt for the Hamilton and Leclerc side of the fight.
More lids and gear are in the Formula 1 hats collection.
