Stefano Domenicali told he has ‘failed’ as Formula 1 boss if he lets Max Verstappen quit

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Stefano Domenicali has been told that he has ‘failed’ as Formula 1 boss if he lets Max Verstappen walk away from the sport.

Four-time F1 world champion Verstappen has endured a tough start to the 2026 campaign.

Having scored just 12 points from the opening three races, Verstappen currently sits ninth in the standings, 60 points adrift of leader Kimi Antonelli.

It has been well documented that Verstappen is not happy with the sport’s new regulations, having previously branded them as ‘anti-driving’.

Following the Japanese Grand Prix, it was reported that Verstappen is ‘seriously considering’ retiring from F1 at the end of the 2026 season.

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Stefano Domenicali has ‘failed’ if Max Verstappen retires from F1

Speaking on the recent episode of The Two Mechanics podcast, Mark Grain, who previously worked at McLaren, has claimed that Domenicali will have failed as F1 boss if Verstappen walks away.

He said: “I know Max doesn’t like the regulations, and it’s not an uncompetitive car at Red Bull that is giving Max the ache, it’s this generation of cars.

“Even if he has a fast Red Bull, I would still say Max is still going ‘Yeah, won the race, but these cars are horrible’.

“If Stefano Domenicali lets Max go out of Formula 1, I see that as a failure. To let the most talented race car driver on the planet, who is the fastest in the world, then he should be in Formula 1

“If he’s not, that’s a failure of Formula 1 as an organisation. You have to keep him in it.”

Are Red Bull’s days as a top F1 team coming to an end?

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READ MORE: David Coulthard says Max Verstappen will remain with Red Bull even if he leaves the F1 team

Ex-Red Bull mechanic claims F1 has ‘already failed’

While agreeing with Grain’s Verstappen claims, former Red Bull mechanic Kenny Handkammer said that F1 has already failed due to the new regulations.

He said: “And then there are these rumours, well, they aren’t rumours, it is happening, there is this massive scramble to reconfigure the regulations for Miami.

“Which is already a failure, right? They’ve already failed if you are having to rewrite the regs four races in.”

However, Grain chose to look at the potential regulation changes as an ‘evolution’ rather than a ‘failure’.

Grain said: “I see that as an evolution, I think these regs are such a big step that it was always going to take a lot of debugging and I know this is under-egging it, I know it’s a bigger challenge.

“But, you had to get out there, you had to get racing, it needs these reworks.”

Handkammer then replied: “I agree with that, but you would’ve thought, with the capacity of the FIA and how many years they have worked on it, it would come out of the box a bit cleaner.”

In truth, it can be said that F1 has experienced a tough start to the new era and the people making the decisions will need to do everything they can to keep Verstappen in the sport to continue attracting more fans to the sport.