Deflated Max Verstappen ‘doesn’t want to think about championship fight’ with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and instead urges Red Bull to ‘focus on finishing races’… with F1’s reigning champion ‘already MILES behind’ after second DNF in three races
- Max Verstappen was running in second when he retired from the Australian GP
- The result leaves the 2021 drivers’ champion 46 points behind Charles Leclerc
- Verstappen says he ‘doesn’t want to think about the championship fight’
- The Dutchman won in Saudi Arabia but also retired in the Bahrain Grand Prix
Max Verstappen says he ‘doesn’t want to think about’ the championship fight after he suffered his second retirement of the season in the Australian Grand Prix.
The reigning world champion looked certain to finish in second place before he pulled off the circuit with 20 laps to go.
It is his second DNF of the season after retiring in the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix and he is now 46 points behind championship leader Charles Leclerc.
Max Verstappen retired from the Australian Grand Prix – his second DNF in the first three races
When asked how important his two DNFs will be at the end of the season, he told Sky Sports F1: ‘We’re already miles behind so I don’t want to even think about the championship fight at the moment – I think it’s more important to finish races.
‘I mean, of course today was just a bad day in general. Not really having the pace so I was just managing my tyres to just try and bring it to the end.
‘It looked like an easy P2 and I knew I could not fight Charles so there was no point to try and put pressure on him.
‘But we didn’t even finish the race so it’s pretty frustrating and unacceptable.’
Charles Leclerc claimed his second win of the season and is 46 points ahead of Verstappen
Before the race Red Bull mechanics were checking up on the Dutchman’s car and the reigning champion acknowledged that there were reliability concerns.
He said: ‘I knew there was a problem so it was always going to be a question mark of finishing the race.
‘I mean these kinds of things, if you want to fight for the title cannot happen.’
His retirement comes on the back of his first victory of the season in Saudi Arabia in which he overtook Leclerc after a thrilling battle.
In Australia, Verstappen suffered with tyre degradation during the race and was unable to keep up with Leclerc who was producing some mighty pace in his Ferrari.
Verstappen doesn’t want to think about the title fight before Red Bull sort out their reliability
Verstappen, who won in Saudi Arabia, also retired from the season opener in Bahrain
A safety car put Verstappen back on the tail of Leclerc, only for the Monegasque driver to again pull away with ease.
The 24-year-old then reported that he could smell ‘weird fluid’ over the team radio.
He then slowed down and was told by his team to pull to the side of the track.
Smoke came billowing out of the car and Verstappen instructed the track marshals to extinguish a fire in the back of his Red Bull.
The result leaves him sixth in the championship on 25 points and he will hope that Red Bull can sort out their reliability issues to enable him to work his way back into the championship fight.
Leclerc has a 34 point lead over the Mercedes of George Russell, which is a larger championship lead than at any point of last year’s title fight between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.
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