Max Verstappen does not do P6. That was essentially the message when the four-time world champion was asked how he still drags a result out of a car that is nowhere near where it should be.

“I think from my side, it’s just you never really give up or, in terms of, like, you just never really settle for P6 or P7, right?” he told reporters at Interlagos, in comments reported by PlanetF1.

The principle produced the drive of his weekend on Sunday 8 November. A grid penalty for a new power unit sent him to the back of the grid, starting 21st, his first power unit sanction of 2026 and the first race in which Red Bull ran its new Ford-partnered engine beyond its allocation. He was second by the flag, behind only Lando Norris.

Even Red Bull did not see it coming

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies was blunt about the scale of the recovery.

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“As always, I think no sim in the world would predict that you go from P21 to P2, or that you get 14 places in five laps,” Mekies told Formula1.com.

Red Bull opened the season off the pace and spent months chasing the front of the grid. Verstappen has turned the back half of the year into a climb up the table, and after the São Paulo result he sits second in the drivers’ standings, 111 points behind newly crowned champion Kimi Antonelli with three rounds to go.

The title is already Antonelli’s

The top prize is not in play. Kimi Antonelli clinched the 2026 drivers’ championship on Sunday 1 November, finishing third at the Mexico City Grand Prix to become the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history at 20 years, two months and seven days.

What is left for Verstappen over the final three rounds is the fight for runner-up, with George Russell, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc all in range behind him. Weekends like Interlagos are the kind that keep that cushion intact.

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Las Vegas next, under the lights

Formula 1 heads to the Strip from 19 to 21 November. Lights out for the main event is at 8pm local time on Saturday 21 November, with Qatar and Abu Dhabi closing the season across the following two weekends.

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