Max Verstappen suggests that there is no point thinking about the championship until his Red Bull team get their reliability issues fixed.
Verstappen was running in second place for much of the Australian Grand Prix and, despite two Safety Cars neutralising the pack, he could only watch as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc sailed off into the distance to claim victory.
It then got worse for the Dutchman as an engine failure late on put him out of the running as it did in Bahrain in round one, so he indicates that the focal point should be on purely making it to the finish line at the moment.
“We’re already miles behind so I don’t even want to think about the championship fight at the moment,” a dejected Verstappen told Sky Sports.
“I think it’s more important at the moment to finish races.
“I mean of course today was in general was just a bad day [due to] not really having the pace, I was just managing my tyres and trying to just bring it to the end because it looked like quite a easy P2 anyway and I knew I could not fight Charles.
“So there was no point to try and put pressure on him, but yeah we didn’t even finish the race so it’s pretty frustrating and unacceptable.”
The reigning world champion said on the radio before his power unit gave out that there was a strange smell emanating from the back of the Red Bull car, so he was aware that he had a problem.
He stresses that his team can forget about the championship if they cannot rectify the reliability struggles.
“I mean I knew there was a problem so there was obviously going to be a question mark of finishing the race but I mean these kind of things, if you want to fight for the title, cannot happen.”
“I don’t know. I stopped the car but they have to get the car back and investigate,” he explained.
Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez did manage to finish the race, and came home second behind the dominant Leclerc.