Red Bull’s Max Verstappen qualified on the front row for the 2026 F1 Miami GP, after a superb final effort which left him just 0.166s shy of Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes at the front of the field.
The four-time world champion was full of praise for the work done by Red Bull over the 5-week gap between the Japanese GP and the Miami’ GP, as he went from being knocked out in Q2 in Suzuka to now starting on the front row and having a real shot at beating a Mercedes to pole position.
“Not a passenger anymore” – Verstappen praises Red Bull’s upgrades at the 2026 F1 Miami GP
Speaking after the session, Verstappen explained that “many things” changed in the car, not only performance upgrades, but also hinted at seating ajdustments and comfort changes which have made him gel better with the RB22, as he’s not feeling “like a passenger” anymore:
“A lot of things [changed],” he said. “I mean, so many things were not working up until this weekend, so for us bringing the car back together.
“Also for me in the car itself, a few things have changed and it made it a lot more comfortable to drive, and just I feel a lot more confident and I don’t feel like I’m a passenger anymore in the car.
“That was already quite evident yesterday. And then I think today, the Sprint was not too bad. I could finally follow the cars ahead of me instead of them just pulling away and not see them again.
“And then some tiny changes for qualifying and it seemed like that helped again a little bit.
“I mean, to be on the front row coming from over a second behind in the previous race is really incredible.”
“Amazing” team effort to recover from difficult start of the season
The Dutchman further praised the work done back at the factory in Milton Keynes to change their situation around, and explained how he’s impressed to see such “amazing” effort from the team members to recover so much relative to its competitors following a tricky start to the season, both reliability and performance-wise, given the all-new Red Bull/Ford powertrain.
“Yeah, it’s [a] massive [effort],” he said. “I mean, we were really not happy, of course, with what we were doing the previous races. But you can see everyone was pushing flat out to try and understand the problems and they have come with solutions.
“And that’s just amazing to see, [such] amazing team effort.
“From my side, then, of course, when I get a car that is more together, I get more confidence and I can finally also push a bit more.
“And then I try to, of course, always extract the most out of it, and that’s what we’ve done. I mean, honestly, yeah, in that lap as well, like just trying to hang on to it. It was good.“
Confidence in the car the main thing
Verstappen was also adamant that now he has a car in which he can confidently throw around the circuit without suffering from massive oversteer snaps or chronic understeer that plagued him in the early races, which didn’t happen so far at the 2026 F1 Miami GP weekend:
“Before, nothing really worked, I felt like a total passenger in the car. It could understeer. It could snap on me, [or] it could feel different from one session to the other one without even touching parts.
“So we understood a lot of stuff. I think we’re still not where we want to be in terms of understanding everything, but most of it.
“And that showed, here the car just feels a lot more together. I can finally drive how I want to driv,e also with just my steering inputs.
“That helps a lot. And then I think also with the energy management, I think everyone is learning every single weekend, and so are we. Of course, we are a completely new manufacturer. So I think our learning curve is probably a little bit more steep. But yeah, they’re doing a really good job and it’s just getting, let’s say, better and better every time.”
Verstappen expects wet race to be “quite slippery” at 2026 F1 Miami GP
With it now confirmed that the Miami GP will start three hours earlier than initially planned in order to avoid the worst of the predicted thunderstorms for Sunday afternoon, Max Verstappen expects that a wet race around the Miami International Autodrome will prove “quite slippery” with the new 2026 F1 cars.
He recalled that his only experience in the wet with the new machinery was in Barcelona at the collective shakedown, in which only he and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took part in a rainy day at Catalunya:
“[It will be] quite slippery. I’ve driven them, of course, in Barcelona. I think it was only me and Charles [Leclerc] that day we were driving.
“It’s quite a handful. It’s not going to be easy. But let’s first also wait and see how much water is going to come down, because that also makes a big difference.”
