Max Verstappen has described his battle with Lewis Hamilton as “very good” after claiming what appears to be his first podium finish of the 2026 Formula 1 season. The result signals a significant moment in a rivalry that has taken on fresh dimensions this year, with Hamilton now racing for Ferrari rather than the Mercedes team he shared with Verstappen’s fiercest title battles from years past.
Old rivals, new colours
Verstappen and Hamilton’s on-track history stretches back years, but 2026 has reshuffled the deck entirely. Hamilton made his long-anticipated move to Ferrari at the start of the 2025 season, and this year the Scuderia heads into the new technical era — with overhauled power units and revised aerodynamic regulations — as one of the championship’s most scrutinised outfits. Meanwhile, Verstappen continues his Red Bull campaign alongside Yuki Tsunoda under team principal Laurent Mekies.
The fact that Verstappen is only now securing his first podium of 2026 tells its own story. The new regulations, which brought roughly 50 percent electrical power delivery and a wholesale chassis reset, have closed up the field considerably. Red Bull, dominant for so much of the recent era, have had to rebuild their competitive identity from the ground up — as has every team on the grid.
Hamilton’s presence at Ferrari adds a particular edge to any wheel-to-wheel moment. The seven-time world champion spent over a decade at Mercedes, where he and Verstappen produced some of the most fiercely contested racing in the sport’s modern history. Now, with Hamilton in red and Verstappen still in the Red Bull’s colours, that competitive thread continues — just through different machinery and a very different regulatory backdrop.
What the podium means for Verstappen’s season
A first podium of the year, however it was earned, gives Red Bull and Verstappen something concrete to build on. The 2026 season has been framed by the uncertainty that always surrounds a major regulation change: who adapted fastest, whose power unit partnership hit its stride first, whose chassis concept proved most suited to the new aerodynamic philosophy. For Verstappen, that first top-three finish is validation that Red Bull’s direction is heading somewhere meaningful.
The characterisation of the Hamilton battle as “very good” is notable in itself. Verstappen is not a driver given to generous assessments of his competitors mid-fight — when he uses that language, it usually means the contest was genuinely close and worth relishing. Hamilton, for his part, has spoken throughout his Ferrari tenure about wanting to be part of moments like these, challenging for results at the front of the field with a team capable of matching his ambitions.
Whether this podium is a turning point for Red Bull or a one-off peak amid a difficult period will become clearer over the coming rounds. The 2026 calendar rolls on quickly, and every point matters in a championship that has already shown it will not hand dominance to anyone easily.
The next opportunity for Verstappen to build on this result — and potentially renew the Hamilton duel — comes at the next grand prix weekend, where the shape of the 2026 title fight should become considerably clearer.