Verstappen's DNF comes as no surprise: 'A day like this would come'

Verstappen falls out in Australia, but keeps up courage

Verstappen knew that something similar would happen one day, he explained. "It excites me, in a way, because I would like to win. And of course, we had a lot of good races in a row, a lot of basically good reliability. And I knew that the day would come that, you know, you end up having a retirement and unfortunately that day was today." When Verstappen is asked about the cheering fans who were happy with the Red Bull driver's failure, he responds dryly: "Some of the crowd seemed to be cheering when you have a problem… I have a helmet on so I don't hear that!"

Last year Verstappen did not win the Singapore Grand Prix, Sainz was the lucky one then too. The Saudi Arabia Grand Prix and Bahrain Grand Prix were won by teammate Sergio Perez. All the other 19 races Verstappen won. "I think we just had already a very good run of two years, right. I mean, that's already quite impressive. But of course, you never like to see it happen. But it's more important now that we understand why it happened.."

Verstappen: 'Some things are out of your control'

"I'm disappointed with, you know, not being able to finish the race because I think we would have had a good shot at winning because the balance felt quite nice on the laps to the grid. Like I felt confident and like a good improvement compared to what I felt in the long runs when we did in practice. But yeah, some things you can't control," Verstappen concluded.

The 26-year-old driver sees Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez approaching in the world championship after his failure in Melbourne. Verstappen remains with 51 points in the world championship because of scoring zero points this weekend. Leclerc is now in P2 with 47 points. Verstappen's teammate Perez is one point behind Leclerc, on 46 points.