Max Verstappen was forced to stop on track in the Australian GP for the second time in three races in the 2022 season.
Max Verstappen was frustrated after being unable to finish the race for the second time in the three races of the 2022 season. He was forced to stop the car on the 39th lap with smoke coming out of the Red Bull’s PU.
Following the DNF, Verstappen said that he is not thinking about defending his 2021 title.
LAP 39/59
Max Verstappen is OUT of the race!!! ❌
He’s had to retire the car after being asked by his engineer to stop at Turn 2#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/hLz41lNaLf
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 10, 2022
Verstappen said, “We’re already miles behind. I don’t even want to think about the championship fight at the moment. It’s more important to finish races.”
“Today was in general just a bad day and not really have the pace. I was just managing my tyres to try to bring it to the end because it looked like quite an easy P2. There was no point trying to fight Charles because I couldn’t put pressure on him. ”
“But we didn’t even finish the race, which is pretty frustrating and unacceptable.”
“I knew there was a problem and it was always going to be a case of trying to finish the race. But these kind of things, if you want to fight for the title, cannot happen.”
Also Read: George Russell disappointed with Mercedes’ command to yield his podium position to Sergio Perez
Max Verstappen lagging behind in points
Due to the reliability issue, the Dutchman has only been able to score 25 points as the third weekend of the year concludes.
Meanwhile, his rival Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc has extended his lead to 71 points. The Red Bull driver is also behind his teammate Sergio Perez (30) and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (28) and George Russell (37).
The team does not understand the issue completely yet and they hope to know what happened potentially after they get back to Milton-Keynes.
In the post-race interview, Perez said, “It’s certainly a concern. I mean, we’ve lost a lot of points already in the first three races that in the end can make a huge difference in the championship.”
“We’re obviously aware of it. All the team back home in Milton Keynes are working flat out to try and come up with solutions.”
“We don’t know exactly the issue for Max today so we will see and I’m sure we will turn things around and hopefully we can start again from zero when we go back to Europe.”
Also Read: George Russell responds to Mark Webber’s lucky pitstop remark
