27 Jul 2026
Eleven rounds into Formula 1's new regulations, Max Verstappen sits sixth in the drivers' championship and Red Bull fourth among constructors, 202 points behind Mercedes — a scale of deficit that has turned 2026 into a rebuilding season rather than a title defence.
After the Hungarian Grand Prix, the eleventh round of 2026, Max Verstappen stood sixth in the Formula 1 drivers' championship on 109 points, with Red Bull Racing fourth among the constructors on 177 — 202 points behind a Mercedes team that, according to RACER's mid-season report card, had won eight of the opening eleven races and finished on the podium in every one it didn't win.
It is a markedly different position from the one Red Bull occupied heading into the year. The team had signed on early to the philosophy behind Formula 1's new power unit rules, and Verstappen's own form across the season's flashes of pace — a recovery from 20th on the grid to sixth at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix chief among them — suggested the driver had lost none of his edge even as the car had. The Race's Edd Straw, running his mid-season driver rankings after the summer break, noted his panel rated Verstappen among the strongest performers of the year regardless of results; fellow panellist James Hinchcliffe placed him in his personal top three alongside Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton.
Results have not consistently followed. Verstappen's best result of the run into the summer break was second at the Hungarian Grand Prix, 15.080 seconds behind Lando Norris — a race in which he out-scored teammate Isack Hadjar but still finished a distant second to a Mercedes-Ferrari-McLaren front that has largely locked Red Bull out of victories in 2026.
With twelve rounds remaining and 316 points still available in the drivers' championship, the mathematical door to a title challenge is not fully shut. But a 202-point gap to the constructors' pace-setters, with a season built around adapting to entirely new power unit and aerodynamic rules, has left Red Bull working to close a gap that opened in the season's first weekend and has not meaningfully narrowed since.
After the worst start of any established team in 2026 — 10th in the constructors' championship on a single point — Aston Martin's 16-part upgrade at the Hungarian Grand Prix cut their race-day deficit from over five seconds a lap to close to two, with Honda's first in-season engine upgrade arriving this weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Four seasons after their last title, Mercedes have won eight of the first eleven 2026 races and lead both championships comfortably at the summer break — with rookie-turned-contender Kimi Antonelli out front and George Russell third, their strongest form since the end of the hybrid-dominance era.
Formula 1's reigning world champion has one grand prix win and three retirements through eleven rounds of 2026 — a season shaped more by McLaren's reliability than by his pace.
Formula 1's newest team enters its second half still searching for a maiden points finish, and does so under new leadership after Cadillac replaced team principal Graeme Lowdon with Marcin Budkowski partway through its debut season.