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Three races into this season Max Verstappen thought his title chances were “gone”, and that’s why he’s not crowing about his 21-point lead.

Red Bull had a wretched start to this year’s championship as reigning World Champion Verstappen suffered two retirements in three races, his team-mate Sergio Perez also out of the season-opening Bahrain GP.

There was, however, a glimmer of hope as the team focused on Verstappen’s Saudi Arabian win with Christian Horner saying he’d “rather fix a fast car than make a slow one fast”.

But in the standings, at least Verstappen felt, there wasn’t much hope.

His second DNF meant he slumped to a 46-point deficit, the driver not even featuring in the top-five in the standings.

Four wins in the five races since his Melbourne disappointment have seen the tables turn, Verstappen now 21 points up as he leads a Red Bull 1-2.

“Starting the season before we had done any races, you don’t know,” he explained on the latest Talking Bull podcast. “Like it is really maybe we have a good car, maybe we don’t.

“Then it seemed like we had a competitive car so we can be in the fight for the championship but then after retiring two times, and I was 46 or 47 points down.

“I was like, ‘This [title battle] is gone, this is not happening,’ or at least it will take a very long time to catch up, and then basically in three races, as a team