Verstappen: I'm not going to give up easily

For the second Formula 1 race weekend in a row, Verstappen finds himself in the midst of controversy, as his racing tactics have been under question since the US Grand Prix last weekend.

And while the Dutchman played within the gray area of the rules perfectly back in Austin when defending against title rival Lando Norris, he went too far in Mexico City on Sunday and was slapped with two 10-second time penalties.

That put Verstappen on the back foot, finishing the race in sixth while Norris was second, but Verstappen is not backing down.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the race, he said: "The problem is, when you're slower, you're being put into those kind of positions. I'm not going to give up easily.

"At the end of the day it's also not about agreeing or disagreeing with the penalties," he added. The only thing is 20 seconds is quite a lot.

"But the biggest problem of today and also what I worry about is the race pace. It was really not good and is something we need to analyse. Even without those penalties, we had no chance at all to fight at the front.

"I'm not worried [about the title]. This was a really bad race for us but I also know we can do much better than this so we'll just keep going at it," Verstappen concluded.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner agreed with his driver that the penalties were too harsh; he commented: "Max did leave the track at Turn 4 then at 7, Lando opened the door very late and both ran off there.

"The problem is, I think we're going to get into very dangerous territory of, at what point is a dive bomb going to be OK?

"I think, really, the FIA and the drivers need to sit down and decide what is acceptable and what isn't. I thought two 10-second [penalties] was a bit on the harsh side today [Sunday].

"You've always got to play to the rules. We'll look and learn from this race, but more for us today was that we just didn't have the pace. That's where our focus will be in the next five days," Horner concluded.

With how Norris and Verstappen finished in the Mexico City Grand Prix, the latter still leads the F1 drivers' championship, but the gap to his rival is now 47 points with four races remaining.