Bahrain Testing Day 2: What's behind Verstappen's 'anti-racing' rules comment?
The Race F1 Podcast
The Race Media Ltd
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Day 2 of F1 testing in Bahrain was dominated by Max Verstappen’s comments about the 2026 regulations - but what’s prompted him to call them “not very Formula 1-like", "anti-racing" and more like "Formula E on steroids”? Dutch F1 commentator Nelson Valkenburg, of Viaplay Netherlands, joins Edd Straw to give his verdict on Max’s comments, and talk through all the rest of the big stories from the day, including Ferrari’s pace and Mercedes’ struggles.
Also in this episode, Scott Mitchell-Malm reports back on Aston Martin’s progress after Lance Stroll claimed the team’s new car was up to four and a half seconds off the leading teams, and Jon Noble checks in to discuss the story he broke on Thursday about a potential change to the F1 start procedure that was blocked by Ferrari.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic |
| 0:02.7 | The Races |
| 0:02.7 | The Races on and Max Vestappen may be driving a car. |
| 0:16.0 | Some rivals tip as having a clear advantage, but that doesn't mean he likes it, as he took aim at not very |
| 0:22.3 | Formula One-like, anti-racing, and more like Formula E on steroids' new regulations. So why has |
| 0:29.8 | he gone on the attack? And how much clearer is the competitive order after day two of the first |
| 0:33.9 | Bahrain test? I'm Edgraw, and joining me to tell all is Nelson Valkenberg. |
| 0:40.1 | Well, Nelson, we chose a great day to have you on this podcast because it's Max Verstappen |
| 0:44.4 | Day. |
| 0:45.0 | You are, of course, the ViyaPlay Netherlands TV commentator, so are you a bit worried |
| 0:50.3 | he might have scared your audience away? |
| 0:52.2 | Well, I don't think the Dutch dislike being |
| 0:55.7 | honest. They don't like, they don't dislike being brutally honest. And Max definitely was that today. |
| 1:02.8 | I was in an interesting position because I had a one-on-one with him in Dutch. And if you think |
| 1:08.6 | he was clear-cut in English, in Dutch he was even more so. |
| 1:12.6 | Oh, how much more so? Some stronger language. Definitely not a fan of this current |
| 1:17.9 | regulation set and we couldn't have doubted it. Because if there's one purest in this paddock |
| 1:23.7 | other than you and me, it is of course Max. Max is the ultimate purest in terms of |
| 1:29.1 | motorsport history. He would like to go to cars from 1999 or something like that. That's not the |
| 1:35.4 | case, but that doesn't diminish his competitive spirit. Those two paths in his head go side |
| 1:41.8 | by side. And that's the interesting part with him. Yeah, exactly. And it's interesting because I get the feeling there's a little bit of a three-line whip on everyone to be positive about the new cars, etc. And a lot of the drivers have been trying to do that and accentuating the positive. And any criticisms have been more implied than explicit. And then you get, I'm just going to read this quote from Max. |
| 2:01.5 | It was pretty clear because he said, I am, of course, exploring other things outside of Formula One to |
... |
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