Max Verstappen reflects on a tough Chinese Grand Prix

Verstappen qualified eighth for the Formula 1 race in Shanghai and had another terrible start similar to his launch in the Sprint Race one day earlier.

He got unlucky with the timing of a Safety Car that came out to retrieve Lance Stroll's broken-down Aston Martin as he pitted moments earlier.

And while Verstappen kept fighting and was up to six at one point, his RB22 broke down and had to be retired.

Verstappen said of the difficulties he faced: “Same problem as yesterday in the start, so we were last again and then tried to find my way forwards, but again [we had] the same problem as in the Sprint, where there was just a lot of deg, a lot of graining on the tyres.

“That always makes it very complicated, and then we had to retire the car with the ERS [Energy Recovery System] cooling issues," he added.

Quizzed on what the plan is as F1 now will race in Japan in a fortnight, Verstappen said: “Yeah, I mean, a lot to learn from. It’s definitely not where we want to be, of course, but I also know that the team is giving it everything, so it’s frustrating for me but also frustrating for them.

“At the end of the day, we need to try and figure it out together. We'll, of course, try to be a bit better for Japan, but after that we have a bit of a bigger break now that hopefully we can use to sort some stuff out.”

On the other side of the Red Bull garage, Isack Hadjar survived a spin at the start of the race to finish eighth.

“I didn’t see that [first-lap spin] coming,” the Frenchman said after the race. “The rear snapped out so fast, and it’s a shame because we had a good start.

"Still, somehow we got quite lucky with some cars having issues and us ending up in the points when clearly our pace was not great the whole weekend. We got lucky on that, and we need to regroup and do better.

“Yeah, sure," he responded when asked if he felt he was maximizing his potential. "Since Melbourne, apart from the mistake I did on Lap 1, I think I’m quite happy about my own performance.

"That’s all I can do so far and improve our car," Hadjar concluded. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)