Max Verstappen admits he is "already miles behind" in the championship after retiring in Australia.
The Dutchman pulled off while running second in Melbourne with an apparent fuel system problem on his Red Bull, his second DNF due to unreliability in the first three races.
As a result, Verstappen sits only sixth in the Drivers' standings, 46 points behind runaway early leader Charles Leclerc, who claim victory on Sunday.
"We are already miles behind," he told Sky Sports F1. "I don't even want to think about the championship fight at the moment, I think it is more important to finish races.
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"Of course, today in general was a bad day again. Just not really having the pace, just managing my tyres to bring it to the end because it felt like an easy P2 and I knew I could not fight Charles so there was no point trying.
"But we didn't even finish the race so it is pretty frustrating and unacceptable."
Red Bull had been seen working hard on Verstappen's car pre-race, already triggering concerns over reliability, and the world champion knows his hopes of retaining that title are looking bleak at this point.
"I mean I knew there was a problem so there was obviously going to be a question mark of finishing the race," he said.
"These kinds of things, if you want to fight for the title cannot happen."
Also speaking post-race, Red Bull boss Christian Horner sympathised with his driver.
“It’s totally understandable, his frustration. That was a really disappointing result not to finish the race," he commented.
Heartbreak for Max Verstappen in Australia 💔
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 10, 2022
An podium opportunity missed for the Dutchman after a strong showing ended prematurely with a car problem 😫#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/DXeOAe1r4X
"We need to get on top of it. We can’t accept DNFs. We need to understand what the issue is and address it.
“I don’t think it’s engine related. I think it might be a fuel issue, but we need to get the car back and look at what exactly happened. Until we get the car back we don’t have data, we don’t have the info.”
Such has been Red Bull's problems that Mercedes, for their lack of performance, actually lead them in the Constructors' standings.
But Horner insisted... “I’d rather fix a fast car than try to make a reliable, slow one fast.
“We’ve got things in the pipeline that I think will help and we move back to Europe now and need to put this behind us, address it and move on."
Also worrying though was Leclerc's pace in Melbourne, as he led second-placed Sergio Perez by 20 seconds.
"We didn’t have the pace to race Charles today, they were in a league of their own," Horner conceded.
“You could see Charles had the lowest [tyre] deg and when your car’s in a happy place you don’t have those problems.
"He didn’t have the blistering, he didn’t have the graining to the extent that others had and to an extent that accentuated some of the issues that Max had.
“I think conditions are slightly different today compared to Friday, but today we expected to be a lot closer to Ferrari on pace and they were untouchable today, so congratulations to them but we have still got some work to do.
“We just didn’t, as a team, have the pace to beat Charles today. Their car on these tyres, on this surface, at this track today was untouchable, which we didn’t see on Friday. It came alive for them today.”
