The 2026 Formula 1 season has already given two clear trends: Mercedes appear dominant, while Red Bull are struggling to find their pace.
So far this season, Max Verstappen has yet to secure a podium finish or even start from the front row. At the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday, the four-time world champion suffered a mechanical failure on lap 45 and returned to the pits while running in sixth place, just behind Oliver Bearman of Haas.
Verstappen's Red Bull suddenly began slowing down, and the team instructed him to return to the garage, forcing him to retire from the race prematurely. It marked the first time in his career that the Dutch driver retired from the Chinese Grand Prix.
The struggles for Verstappen began earlier in the season at the Australian Grand Prix, where he finished sixth after starting from the back of the grid following a crash in qualifying that prevented him from completing a lap.
Max Verstappen's Red Bull Faced ERS Issue
This weekend in Shanghai brought little improvement for the Milton Keynes-based team. Still, Verstappen managed only eighth place in Saturday's qualifying session.
During Sunday's race, while fighting to remain in the top ten, he faced the nighmatre of DNF. Red Bull later revealed that the car suffered an Energy Recovery System (ERS) coolant failure, according to RacingNews365. If Verstappen had continued driving, the issue could have caused severe damage to the car's hardware, forcing the team to retire the car as a precaution.
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As a result, Verstappen remains on eight points in the drivers' standings after two races.
Following a disappointing qualifying session on Saturday, where Verstappen set the fastest lap that was more than one second behind the leader Kimi Antonelli, he described the RB22 as "completely undriveable.
"We changed a lot on the car, and it makes zero difference," the four-time world champion told reporters. "The whole weekend we've been off, the car is completely undriveable," Verstappen added. "Every lap is like survival."
Meanwhile, Mercedes' 19-year-old prodigy Andrea Kimi Antonelli dominated the race to secure his first-ever Formula 1 Grand Prix victory. The Italian also became the second-youngest race winner in Formula 1 history.
The record for the youngest race winner is still held by Max Verstappen, who famously won his first race at the age of 18 with Red Bull Racing at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix.