While George Russell left the Australian Grand Prix beaming from ear to ear, Max Verstappen was the complete opposite. Finishing sixth, the champion sounded thoroughly fed up with his current reality of the new regulations.
When asked by Sky Sports F1 if he actually enjoyed the race, Verstappen was his usual level of blunt.
“No, not really. The overtakes were fun but I’m also racing cars that are two seconds slower,” he said flatly.
Rather than relishing the wheel-to-wheel combat (the F1 movie is still plaguing me apparently), Verstappen was annoyed by the lack of performance from the cars compared to last year and disliked the fact he had to drive through the field – a field which was noticeably slower than him.
“For me, it’s just clearing the traffic. It sounds a bit weird but that’s how I see it. It’s not really a fair fight, so I just try to get through as clean as possible and try to get into my rhythm when I clear the midfield,” he explained.
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Compounding this frustration, his Milton Keynes machinery chewed through its rubber, leaving Verstappen unable to mount a serious charge once he finally found clear air.
“But we had too much degradation. We were graining a lot on the tyres. That compromised a lot with the rest of the race,” Verstappen admitted.
“We thought with the hard compound it would be better for us. But unfortunately that compound didn’t work today,” he noted.
The Dutchman is under no illusions about where his team currently sits in the pecking order. With the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari looking to be so far ahead, his interest in the championship is starting to wain.
“Mercedes will be quick everywhere. With McLaren I don’t know. In Bahrain [Testing] they were faster. It’s very hard to say. We need to see track by track,” he said..
Ultimately, for Verstappen, anything short of a car capable of winning is a failure.
“In the end, it doesn’t matter if you are third or fourth fastest. We are aiming for the top,” he continued. “We just try to work to that steadily. I hope throughout the season we can close that gap because at the moment it’s still a decent gap.”
