Max Verstappen has claimed the recent engine failures for Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo are proof the problems he had earlier in the year were not driver-related.
The Australian has been forced to pull over at both the last two races in Austin and Mexico due to power unit problems and is likely to start from the back of the grid for the second straight race, as a result, this weekend in Brazil.
For the 20-year-old the situation has been very different with four top four finishes in a row, including two wins in Malaysia and Mexico, but after four engine-related retirements of his own earlier in the year, some including Ricciardo were questioning if he pushes engines too hard.
“Daniel has also had problems lately. If we could control it, then it would have been better, but as you can see it can happen on either side of the garage,” Verstappen claimed on Thursday. “It seemed like in the beginning of the year Daniel was good in that, but it has nothing to do with the driver.”
Though his luck has turned in recent rounds, the Dutchman also suggested it is still impossible to look at 2017 from a positive perspective as there was never any chances of fighting for the title.
“Of course the season, in general, is still not how it should have been because I am catching up a lot now but I lost a lot of points,” he said. “I am not happy in that way, that I am still sixth in the championship. On the other hand, it does not really matter if you are second or sixth, it is not first.”
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But, looking forward, he has much better expectations that the deficiencies from this year won’t be repeated and also hopes the engine influence will be greatly reduced.
“We learned from our mistakes so hopefully we will have a better car at the beginning of the year, which I anyway think we will do because the rules are not really changing,” the three-time F1 winner stated. “It is not that from one to the other season you are going to gain a massive amount of downforce, but we should be alright.
“The whole package is still not the best but what is the most important for me personally is the car,” he added. “Everybody can win championships when you have a very powerful engine but I hope that, especially in the upcoming two years, it will be at least a bit closer and even when we are a few horsepower down we can win races.”
