Verstappen "coping well" despite reliability outburst - Hill

1996 F1 world champion Damon Hill believes Max Verstappen is "coping well" with the early-season frustrations at Red Bull after failing to reach the chequered flag twice in three races.

Verstappen's F1 title defence has gotten off to a rocky start with the Dutchman scoring just 25 points as the sport head's into its fourth round of the season.

All the Dutchman's points came courtesy of his victory in Saudi Arabia, but a brace of retirements in Bahrain and Australia, both of which occurred whilst he was lapping in second place, have left him sixth in the standings and 46 points off championship leader Charles Leclerc.

Following his most recent retirement, Verstappen slated Red Bull's reliability problems as unacceptable but, despite this outburst, Hill told the F1 Nation Podcast: "I think Max is coping well.

"We've had a few expressions of displeasure using words like "unacceptable" and I think that also Christian Horner has agreed with that, that it's not acceptable and they need to fix this problem.

"But at least, if you've got a quick car, he also said 'It's better to have a quick car that's not reliable than a slow car that is reliable'.

"Once you've got the speed, you can work on all the other bits and they will be working furiously to fix that, but it has been very costly and meanwhile, the Ferrari is just going round and round like a metronome."

Hill sympathy for Verstappen

Asked what he would say to the media if suffering reliability problems similar to Verstappen's, Hill added: "There wasn't the pen.

"It was much easier in my day. We had a press conference and then after the race the journalists would come around to the motorhome to ask a few questions, you'd get on your plane and then go home.

"They work so hard. They are constantly bombarded from the moment they get out of the car and I don't know how they cope, these drivers today.

"It's just relentless, the interviews and stuff. I wouldn't cope very well so I probably would drop a few clangers and say 'I'm really bleep bleep bleep'."

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