Max Verstappen's quit threats and complaining has F1 facing an existential crisis

Max Verstappen has repeatedly threatened to quit F1 if the new engine regulations are not changed.

While the jury is still out as to whether or not the threats carry water, that a four-time world champion and the sport's biggest star is threatening to walk away because he hates the cars is a terrible look.

And should he actually pull the pin, the sport would face an existential crisis.

READ MORE: Bunker 'rewarding mediocrity' after latest disruptor call

READ MORE: Top-of-the-table Kiwi derby lives up to the hype

READ MORE: Ricky's 'rocket' praised after young gun's bizarre showboating

"It would show that what should be the pinnacle of motor racing is no longer viewed that way by every driver who is competing in it," respected journalist Chris Medland told Wide World of Sports.

"This was a sport where people would give up anything to have a seat in Formula 1 … and that's something it needs to try and protect."

Verstappen has been the most vocal critic of the sport's new engine regulations. Designed around increased electrification, the goal was to attract new manufacturers to the sport – and it worked. Audi entered as a proper works team for this season, as did Cadillac, albeit running Ferrari engines until their own are bolted in for 2029.

Ford also returned to the sport as an engine supplier, for Verstappen's Red Bull team and the junior Racing Bulls squad.

This year's power units – the term given for the unit encompassing the combustion engine and the electric motors – are the most powerful in the sport's history. At full beans, they produce well in excess of 1000HP. The only problem is the rules surrounding how the electrical energy can be deployed means rarely if ever will all those ponies ever be unleashed at once.

While the on-track product has been good, at least in race trim, drivers and fans are still critical of the perceived artificial nature of the racing.

FIA president Mohammed Bin Sulayem has previously expressed a personal desire to one day return to the fan favourite V10 engines running on synthetic or biofuels.

But should he do that inside the next few years, the manufacturers the sport worked so hard to attract would no doubt leave, and the damage to relationships that would cause would take decades to repair.

It leaves the sport in a tricky spot – change to appease the drivers and maybe the fans, which would upset those paying enormous money to put these cars on the track, or risk losing the best pilots in the world.

Why F1 hasn't put a sock in him

For F1 to have someone of Verstappen's standing bad mouthing the state of the sport isn't a good look, and many other sports might have sanctioned their star player for 'bringing the sport into disrepute'.

But F1 continues to allow him to do so, and for that it should be applauded.

That said, Medland, who has been in and around the F1 paddock for more than a decade, believes it would more than likely be more damaging if they had tried to suppress discourse coming from drivers.

"And he would probably kick off if they tried to," he said.

"Max is being allowed by Red Bull – they don't control him, maybe they feel they can't control him – to speak his mind and say what he thinks, and he does it actually very eloquently at times.

"It's very rarely a 'toys out the pram'-style rant. It's much more explained, considered, context given to it, real depth to his viewpoints. But Formula 1 itself as well isn't there banging down a door saying: 'You've got to stop saying this, you're hurting us'.

"It will be hurting, because obviously we're talking about it right now. It's making headlines, and what the drivers say is something that really influences fan opinion as well.

"If all the drivers had come out and said 'this is great, I'm loving this, this is amazing, the racing's brilliant, it's a whole new challenge that I'm really struggling to get my head around but it's great to be tested as a driver', fan sentiment would be so much stronger in favour of the regulations.

"If the drivers are really not enjoying it and saying it's rubbish … then the fans align with that. What Max says does reach beyond just his own opinion, but influences fan opinion as well."

'If you're not happy, you should stop'

Verstappen has long said he holds no desire to follow the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso and race in F1 into his 40s.

Despite being only 28, 2026 is his 12th full-time campaign in F1. Next month marks the 10th anniversary of his first race win at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix – his first race for Red Bull.

The new cars and Red Bull's lack of competitiveness has left Verstappen more than frustrated. It begs the question – what more does he have to prove?

That he only narrowly missed a fifth world championship last year only reiterated that he's still the best driver on the grid.

He's got stacks of interests outside F1. He's heavily active in the sim racing community, owns a GT3 team, and will this year be competing in the famed Nürburgring 24 hour.

Many believe a sabbatical might be exactly what he needs. Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso both made returns to the sport after taking breaks.

Engine regulation cycles usually last four or five years. Even if Verstappen was to quit the sport at season's end and spend the next few years elsewhere, he could reasonably return and still be in his early 30s. And it's not like he'd struggle to find a team willing to take him.

"If you're not happy doing something, you should stop and do something else," 1996 world champion Damon Hill said on the BBC's The Chequered Flag podcast.

"I don't think he should feel obliged to do (F1) … if he's saying this in order to get some leverage on the way things are at the moment, I don't think that will work. I think with that approach, people will just say 'Max, go away, and come back when you've had a think about it'."

Hill's words carry extra weight. Having won the title in 1996, Hill was famously dumped by Williams and forced to defend his title in a lowly Arrows. After moving to Jordan for 1998, he tried to retire half-way through 1999. He was eventually convinced to stay and do the next race, his home British Grand Prix, where a strong drive to fifth convinced him to see out the season.

"You can't always get what you want, but the point is there are a lot of people talking about these regulations being, from a driving perspective, as being not what they signed up for, not what they believe Formula 1 should be about," Hill continued.

"Max doesn't have to do this – he's earned an awful lot of money, he's a new dad, and so he's been doing it a long time.

"There comes a point where the chewing gum loses its flavour, and maybe you need a break"

'We shouldn't judge him for it'

David Croft has been lead commentator for Sky Sports for the entirety of Verstappen's F1 career.

Croft said he didn't think Verstappen's quit threats were in any way shape of form empty or hollow. He believes he's already likely to retire from F1 at the conclusion of his current Red Bull contract at the end of 2028, but he might pull the pin early.

The feeling among some corners of the F1 fanbase is Verstappen is deliberately trying to stir the pot, but Croft isn't convinced.

"He's voicing his concerns for himself and the sport, and he's saying it in a very Max way, without trying to create headlines," he said on Sky Sports' The F1 Show.

"He's saying 'if things don't change for next year, if this is how it's going to be for years to come, I don't want to be a part of it. I don't need the money, there are other things I can go off to do'.

"Max wants to get behind the wheel – be it in the simulator, virtual racing or on the track and have fun racing. If he's not having fun, he will go off.

"I think we should take this very seriously, and we shouldn't judge him for it either. If he's not feeling the love for the sport, don't stick around. Motorsport is dangerous – you don't want to be doing this sort of thing if you don't have the love for it."

Martin Brundle has virtually watched Max grow up, having raced against his father Jos. Young Max was a constant in the paddock watching his old man.

Brundle issued Verstappen Jnr a directive: put up or shut up.

"Max would say (F1) is getting a bit boring now. I think it's getting a bit boring with what he's saying – either go, or stop talking about it," he said.

But such a blunt statement doesn't mean he wouldn't miss watching one of the all-time greats compete.

"I would hugely miss his talent. His generational speed and car control is something that very few people in the history of motorsport have had. It's quite extraordinary," he said.

"I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that, given (Red Bull) were building their own powertrain for the first time, his management would have put in an exit clause at the end of the year to see how it goes.

"Do I think he'd just walk away from F1? No, I don't, providing he can get a car that pleases him.

"His points are brutally made, but well made, that this is just wrong at this moment.

"What a Schumacher would have done is close the door, thump the desk, metaphorically get a hold of the right people by the throat, walk out with a smile and say everything is fine.

"And if they don't sort it out, then you go on to the media. But that's not how he does things."

'Nobody is indispensable'

One of F1's main selling points is that they are the most exciting racing cars on the planet to drive, and you get to drive them in some of the most exotic places in the world.

The dream of just about every kid who's ever commenced on a career in motorsport is to one day reach F1 – the pinnacle of motorsport globally.

For the drivers who have been lucky enough to make it to now be saying they actively dislike the cars, it's incredibly damaging to the very image of F1.

"F1 does not always produce brilliant racing … yet (drivers) still very much want to be in F1 because of its standing of the whole sport and the platform it gives them," Medland said.

"If you find you don't care for that platform anymore because you are that adverse to the car you're driving, then that reflects fairly badly on the sport.

"I would hope that if the sport really did feel it's headed in the right direction or on or way to improving, that it would just stick to its guns, and hopefully that direction is enough to keep Max in the paddock and racing."

But should he choose to leave, Brundle is under no illusions the sport would roll on – as it has done on countless occasions.

A handful of megastars have been killed in crashes at the peak of their powers – Jochen Rindt, Gilles Villeneuve, Ayrton Senna. Michael Schumacher wasn't driving when he had his ski crash, but it left a similar-sized hole in the paddock. As did Murray Walker when he retired in 2001.

In each of those cases, there was a feeling some of the very fabric of the sport had been lost. But like anything, a fresh patch was sewn on and the circus rolled on.

"Nobody's indispensable in this business," Brundle said. "I've seen a number of amazing people come through this sport … and the sport carries on. This goes for any of us.

"The minute we stop, people would be talking about whoever's doing the job next. The sport would just move on if Max decides to go.

"He's doing a lot of damage meanwhile, (but) I think we appreciate that's how Max rock and rolls."

The cancellation of the Middle East double-header means the next F1 race isn't until the Miami Grand Prix on May 1-3.