’Angry’ Verstappen says he can still win title

Max Verstappen insists that his chances of winning the 2020 title remain alive.

That is despite the fact that his boss Dr Helmut Marko admitted the Dutchman was "really angry" after retiring in Austria last weekend with a Honda-related problem.

"Max was really angry, which I understand," Marko told Osterreich newspaper.

"Hopefully we will put him in a car on Friday with which he can attack again."

After the first race in Austria, some surmised that Red Bull will not be able to take on Mercedes this year.

But Verstappen hit back at that conclusion.

"It bothers me that people do that to my team," he told Dutch reporters in Austria.

"The people in the team know that our car is good. Last weekend it was mainly due to the setup that wasn’t optimal. We can win two or three tenths with that.

"If we can get the gap down to three tenths on one lap, it’s game on in the race," said Verstappen.

Marko agrees.

"After qualifying five tenths behind, we showed in the race that we are still there in terms of pace. Albon would have won the race," he insists.

After an analysis this week of Verstappen’s problem, engine partner Honda has applied technical countermeasures for this weekend.

"A mechanical problem became an electrical problem," Max revealed.

"I can’t go into the full details, but from our side it was easy to fix. In the end we have learned from what went wrong so I don’t expect any problems now."