Unlucky Piastri ponders alternate reality and issues McLaren rally call<\/a><\/p>\nSafety car costs Piastri in Japan | 02:18<\/p>\n
The four-time world champion has suggested he could quit Formula One at the end of the season after enduring another frustrating race on Sunday in Japan.<\/p>\n
The Red Bull driver finished eighth in Suzuka, ending his four-year reign as Japanese Grand Prix champion in ruthless fashion.<\/p>\n
He told the BBC that he was \u201cnot enjoying the whole formula behind\u201d this season\u2019s championship, which has brought in sweeping new regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just think about, is it worth it?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOr do I enjoy being more at home with my family? Seeing my friends more when you\u2019re not enjoying your sport?\u201d Verstappen has repeatedly railed against the new regulations, that see a 50-50 split between conventional and electrical power.<\/p>\n
He labelled his car \u201cundriveable\u201d after qualifying in a lowly 11th for the Japan race.<\/p>\n
When asked if he could walk away from the sport, he replied that he was \u201cthinking about everything inside this paddock\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really anti-driving. Then at one point, yeah, it\u2019s just not what I want to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd of course you can look at it and make a lot of money. Great. \u201cBut at the end of the day it\u2019s not about money any more because this has always been my passion.\u201d <\/p>\n
Verstappen sought a change of scenery by competing in a four-hour race in Germany before the Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Antonelli becomes youngest F1 leader | 01:25<\/p>\n
He will not compete again in F1 until the Miami Grand Prix on May 3, after the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia races scheduled for April were cancelled because of the war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
When asked how he would fill his time during the break, Verstappen answered: \u201cI\u2019ll do some more racing, some stuff that makes me smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd at the same time speak to the team as well, to try and find more pace and some more stable balance because this is not sustainable for us as a team,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Verstappen is in ninth place in the championship standings, 60 points behind leader Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes after three races.<\/p>\n
He finished sixth in the season opener in Australia and retired from the grand prix in China because of a cooling issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be here to have fun and have a great time and enjoy myself. At the moment that\u2019s not really the case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying. I keep telling myself every day to try and enjoy it. It\u2019s just very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen is all but certain to get the chance to walkout on Red Bull this year as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[2620,12295,1724,64,63,689,281458,2090,36339,512,9239,281175,800,2057,140190,817,813,816,20675,3738,282005,3875,5717,2105,841,941,10115,281163,2082,825,13756,677,282008,122761,281172,918,282006,25598,14640,33195,282007,85,73217,281170,12000,2062,2753],"class_list":["post-574801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-breaks-drought","tag-british-broadcasting-corporation","tag-championship-standings","tag-china","tag-eastern-asia","tag-epic-first-corner-move","tag-espn-inc","tag-europe","tag-exit-clause","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-four-time-world-champion","tag-fox-sports","tag-frustrating-race","tag-george-russell","tag-germany","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-grand-prix","tag-japan","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-lap-safety-car","tag-mark-thompson","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mid-season-break","tag-oceania","tag-questions-formula","tag-race-report","tag-rally-call","tag-red-bull","tag-ruthless-fashion","tag-safety-car","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-season-opener","tag-shock-details","tag-sports","tag-suzuka","tag-unlucky-safety-car","tag-western-asia","tag-western-europe","tag-world-champion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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