Max Verstappen is making light of a technical headache that has dogged Red Bull for most of the 2026 season. Speaking at the Thursday press conference ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos, the four-time world champion suggested the fuzzy transmissions had a silver lining: outsiders cannot hear a word of what the team is saying.

“The radio is, I think, a lot better. In Mexico, we were also trying some things, and it’s just a few tiny settings probably to still get right. But actually, the team was hearing me very well. Maybe everyone else not, but that’s actually fantastic, to be honest,” Verstappen told reporters in São Paulo.

A season-long headache

The radio problem is not new. Verstappen and teammate Isack Hadjar have struggled with clarity on their pit-wall transmissions across multiple race weekends, with the issue becoming open conversation in the paddock. Team principal Laurent Mekies confirmed after Singapore that the fault was Red Bull’s rather than something tied to the circumstances.

Singapore was the low point. Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase resorted to coded phrases to push strategy information through to the car, with the Dutchman unable to reply over his own broadcast.

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“He did try at one point to ask me a few things in code, and I think he understood well what I meant or what I didn’t want,” Verstappen told Autosport after that race.

Not complaints, course corrections

In São Paulo, Verstappen also pushed back on the view that his on-radio remarks about gearshifts and car behavior amount to grumbling. He framed them as working notes for the engineers.

“With shifts or whatever that you hear me complain about, it’s just because I’m never satisfied, because I think always certain things can be better, and I always try to fine-tune or find improvements,” he said.

He described those exchanges as a push to keep Red Bull’s engineers probing for lap time, not as a complaint about the car itself.

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Second place and a weekend in Interlagos

Andrea Kimi Antonelli clinched the 2026 drivers’ title at the Mexico City Grand Prix, leaving Verstappen second in the standings on 261 points, 119 points behind the new champion with four rounds to run.

The Brazilian Grand Prix is at Interlagos on Sunday 8 November, with Verstappen holding just a two-point buffer over Lewis Hamilton in the fight for runner-up in the championship.

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