Verstappen doesn't want 'to sound too depressed' after huge points loss in Austrian GP
17:36, 29 Jun
Updated: 20:33, 29 Jun
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After a disappointing weekend at the Red Bull Ring in front of his 'Orange Army' and his team's home crowd, Max Verstappen explained he is not expecting to regularly fight for victories this season, even as Red Bull will introduce further updates.
He was hoping for a strong result in front of his fans but instead, Max Verstappen heads home empty-handed, with a crushing DNF that deals a major blow to his pursuit of a fifth world title. The Dutchman now trails championship leader Oscar Piastri by 61 points.
His gap to Lando Norris now stands at 46 points after a perfect weekend from the Brit, who crossed the finish line ahead of his teammate following a spectacular battle between the two, which means the 'papaya' team claimed another one-two finish.
'I don't want to sound depressed'
Verstappen told GPblog among others there will be more updates introduced on the RB21 this season, but he does not expect to be regularly in contention for victories this campaign.
''There are bits coming. Is it enough to challenge McLaren? I'm not sure yet. Probably not. But, I also don't want to sound depressed. I know that everyone in the team always gives it 100%. And, we keep pushing, keep learning, keep trying to bring more performance to the car. And, that's the only thing that we can do''.
Verstappen also talked about the crash with Kimi Antonelli on Lap 1: ''In turn three the race was over. Because at that point I didn't know what happened. But yeah, we had quite a bit of damage in the car, really turned off''.
''I guess unlucky a little bit yesterday in qualifying and unlucky today in the race. But of course, if you look at the weekend, we were not where we wanted to be, I guess guess in terms of pace and we have to try and analyze that and hopefully have a little bit of a more positive weekend next week''.
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