Formula 1 had another setback for Max Verstappen at the 2026 Chinese GP, this time with an unexpected retirement in the final laps of the race. Red Bull confirmed the reason for the four-time champion’s premature exit and pointed to a failure in the ERS cooling system as the cause of the problem.
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The retirement happened when Verstappen was already in the process of recovering through the field. After another poor start, the Dutch driver managed to move forward throughout the race, but saw his race end suddenly on lap 45, when he lost performance abruptly.
At the moment he slowed down, Verstappen was in sixth position, right behind Haas’s Oliver Bearman. The team then immediately called the driver to the pits and opted to end his participation in the second round of the 2026 Formula 1 season.
Just as had happened in Saturday’s Sprint, the start of the race was also complicated for the Red Bull driver. Verstappen started poorly again and dropped to 16th position in the opening laps, before starting a consistent recovery at the Shanghai circuit.
Even with the difficulties at the start, the Dutchman gradually gained positions throughout the race. The comeback, however, ended up interrupted by the technical problem that took away any chance of a better result at the end of the race.
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After the race, Red Bull clarified the origin of the retirement. According to the team, Verstappen’s RB22 experienced a failure in the ERS cooling system, the car’s energy recovery system.
Faced with the failure, the Milton Keynes team decided to withdraw the car from the race to avoid further damage to the equipment. The choice was made as a way to preserve the power unit and hybrid system components.
The problem represents another setback in an already quite difficult weekend for Verstappen in China. In addition to complaints about the car’s behavior and difficulties at the starts, the retirement ended once and for all any possibility of a stronger recovery in the main race.
With this, Red Bull leaves Shanghai with another warning sign at this start of the season. The retirement due to an ERS cooling system failure increases the pressure on the team, which had already been trying to understand the performance and reliability issues of the RB22 in the early stages of the championship.
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