'Gutted' Max Verstappen forced into retirement again in Azerbaijan

While the Dutchman's team-mate Daniel Ricciardo took a shock victory around the streets of Baku, capitalising on errors, crashes and retirements in front of him, Verstappen was left to lick his wounds after yet another car failure forced him out of the running early on while he was battling for third place.

It is the fourth retirement Verstappen has suffered in the last six races, and none have been of his making. In Bahrain, he had a brake failure, before being in the wrong place at the wrong time in Barcelona when Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen collided, collecting Verstappen in the process. And while running second in Canada two weeks ago, Verstappen suffered an electrical problem, before another failure in his RB13 forced him out of a good position in Baku.

“After what looked like a promising position at the beginning of the race I was gutted to be let down once again by a technical problem," he said afterwards. "After an action packed race we were confident we could have had at least a podium here in Baku, so I am very disappointed with this outcome.”

Team boss Christian Horner said: "Max was in a really strong position harrying for P3 and looked like he great pace in the car.

"Unfortunately a sudden failure in the engine eliminated Max from the race which is hugely frustrating."