{"id":945825,"date":"2026-10-30T01:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T01:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/945825\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T01:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T01:52:09","slug":"max-verstappen-explains-why-he-doesnt-really-care-about-the-drivers-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/945825\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen explains why he doesn\u2019t \u2018really care\u2019 about the Drivers\u2019 Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen has insisted that he doesn\u2019t \u201creally care\u201d about the fight for second place in the Drivers\u2019 Championship and would rather focus on improving Red Bull\u2019s challenger for 2027.<\/p>\n

Recent results have demonstrated that the Milton Keynes-based outfit should never be written off \u2013 after a frustrating wait for victories, Verstappen<\/a> marginally missed out in Azerbaijan before clinching consecutive wins in Malaysia and Singapore.<\/p>\n

Their resurgence has propelled the Dutchman up the standings<\/a>, where he now sits just six points behind George Russell<\/a> in P2 and five adrift of third-placed Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, while Red Bull<\/a> are also level on points with McLaren<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked ahead of the Mexico City Grand Prix<\/a> how important a strong finish in the Drivers\u2019 Championship would be, Verstappen replied: \u201cI don\u2019t really care, because it\u2019s only about first. So for me, I don\u2019t care if I\u2019m second or fifth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing that we want to try and achieve is to be P3 in the Constructors\u2019<\/a>. That\u2019s what I think the team wants, so that\u2019s what we\u2019ll try to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Red Bull haven\u2019t finished outside of the top three in the Teams\u2019 Championship since 2015, Verstappen went on to explain that his biggest priority is ensuring that they begin next season with as strong a car as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201c[There are] still a lot of things that we want to change, and I hope that it will bring the car a bit more together,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s been the target already for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we have improved a lot this year, but I think we are nowhere near satisfied enough, so there will still be a decent amount of changes for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verstappen has won at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez five times in his career, but Red Bull\u2019s struggles last time out in Austin \u2013 where he was unable to hold off Charles Leclerc<\/a> for P2 \u2013 left him reluctant to expect another triumph.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a few little issues that we found, which of course we were dealing with throughout the weekend,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo it\u2019s more about trying to learn from them, trying to fix them and trying to have a little bit more of a straightforward race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the same track, so it\u2019s a very different scenario. It\u2019s very hard to say. Of course, if we fix or know how to fix some of the things that we had in Austin, naturally your pace is better. It\u2019s very simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a bit of damage on my car. Some other bits were not where we wanted them to be, and from the engine side, it was not where we wanted it to be operating and performing, also in terms of horsepower.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a lot of little things that contribute to lap time lost. If you fix that, you naturally pick up pace. We know that if the car and engine are in better shape, then you should go faster. But here, there are so many different elements that come in that it\u2019s very hard to predict whether suddenly you\u2019re fighting for the win again or not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has insisted that he doesn\u2019t \u201creally care\u201d about the fight for second place in the Drivers\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-945825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945825","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=945825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}