“Frustrated all the time, I don’t think you can last a full season”- Max Verstappen on his mindset change

“Frustrated all the time, I don’t think you can last a full season”- Max Verstappen says a minor mindset changed his approach for good.

Max Verstappen is only 23 but is already in contention to challenge Lewis Hamilton’s hegemony. However, not making an instant success with the title earlier kept him frustrated as he confessed multiple times.

But in a recent conversation with David Coulthard, Verstappen has confessed that being in that state of mind because of not winning the championship is not going to help either. So, he changed his mindset, and so far, it has served him good.

“Initially I was like that. You would get a bit frustrated about it because you have that belief and [think] ‘it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen’; and every year it’s just not.

“This year I said to myself: ‘You know what, I can be frustrated all the time about not winning, but maybe I should just see it in a way that it’s not possible, but I should just try to do the best I can and get the best out of myself and really find that enjoyable’, he added.

“And that’s what I’m trying to do now. To get frustrated all the time, I don’t think you can last a full season like that.”

Max Verstappen in Mercedes

In recent weeks, fans have made a petition to grant Verstappen the second Mercedes car to actually challenge Hamilton to add excitement into the sport, as Valtteri Bottas is content with the second fiddle role.

This sentiment has even been shared by Max’s father Jos Verstappen, who lately has heavily been critical of Red Bull and their engineering performances, which is not fruitful to junior Verstappen’s aspirations.

However, Mercedes would be the first to object that as they don’t believe in bothering the current order, they recreate a Nico-Lewis saga for their own tragedy.

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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