Verstappen bemoans ‘frustrating and unacceptable’ DNF

Max Verstappen said he can not even think about the title right now after a second retirement from P2 of the season in Australia.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Verstappen found themselves as the front-runners again as Formula 1 made its return to Albert Park, but unlike the previous rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Leclerc was looking comfortable, surviving a couple of Safety Car restarts and restoring a healthy gap over Verstappen from there.

So, Verstappen looked a safe bet for P2 as Leclerc went on to win, that was before he pulled his RB18 over to the side of the track on Lap 39.

Just like Bahrain then, Verstappen had retired when P2 seemed in the bag, meaning that is now 36 points lost in three races.

He is now 46 points behind Leclerc in the Drivers’ standings, left to rue another DNF which was simply “not acceptable”.

Two DNFs in three races so far this season for Max Verstappen. Losing precious ground in his title defence.#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/y5dHn3F3s6

— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) April 10, 2022

Asked by Sky F1 how important that DNF will be in the context of his season, Verstappen replied: “Well we are already miles behind, so I don’t really even want to think about the Championship battle at the moment.

“I think it’s more important to finish races.

“Of course today was in general just a bad day again, and not really having the pace or even managing my tyres, trying to just bring it to the end because it looked like quite an easy P2 anyway and I knew that 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 not acceptable.”

Verstappen admitted that he knew there was a problem pre-race with his Red Bull,