Verstappen Calls Hungary 'One of the Hardest' Races Despite Red Bull Podium

Max Verstappen offered a brutally honest assessment of his Hungarian Grand Prix, calling it one of the hardest races of the 2026 season despite matching his best result of the year with second place. The four-time world champion dragged his troubled RB22 onto the podium behind Lando Norris, yet insisted the balance problems that wrecked his qualifying remained completely unchanged.

Why it matters:

Red Bull arrived in Budapest with many tipping the Hungaroring as their best shot at a maiden 2026 victory. The track's low-speed corners were expected to mask the RB22's chronic energy deployment weaknesses, but Verstappen could only manage sixth on the grid before clawing his way to an improbable runner-up finish. The disconnect between expectation and reality underscores how deep the team's structural issues run, and how heavily Verstappen is overdriving a fundamentally flawed car.

The details:

• Verstappen qualified sixth after fighting aerodynamic loss, a lack of mechanical grip, and severe oversteer. A spin on his final Q3 lap left him five tenths off Lando Norris' pole time, prompting him to call the car "impossible" and "undriveable."
• Asked if Sunday brought relief, Verstappen was blunt: "No. It was exactly the same." He spent the entire race managing unpredictable balance corner to corner.
• Teammate Isack Hadjar backed up the effort with sixth place, extending an impressive rookie streak of seven consecutive top-six finishes.

What's next:

With no quick fix for the RB22's core balance issues, Verstappen faces a prolonged fight to extract results from a car still off the leading pace. Red Bull must accept that circuit characteristics alone cannot cure their season-long ills, leaving few opportunities to turn promise into victory as the championship fight stretches away.