Verstappen on Red Bull future: 'You can't call it bad luck anymore'

Max Verstappen has revealed he will tolerate "not too many" more reliability problems before he considers his Red Bull future after retiring from the Belgian Grand Prix.

In front of a large Dutch contingent in the crowd at Spa-Francorchamps, Verstappen retired on the eighth lap after reporting a loss of power. That follows failures to finish in Bahrain, Canada, Azerbaijan and Austria due to reliability issues, with his Spanish Grand Prix also coming to an end after contact.

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"Frustrated, disappointed, and really not happy," Verstappen said after the race. "For a top team, this cannot happen. In the beginning you can say it's bad luck, those things happen but if it's happening again and for the sixth time this year you can't call it bad luck anymore."

Asked how many DNF's he would tolerate before he reconsiders his future, Verstappen replied: "I don't know but not too many."

And Verstappen admits his motivation is taking a hit from all the retirements having put himself in a good position, with the Dutch driver running fifth at the time of his problem.

"Especially for the fans, they buy very expensive tickets to come and watch the race and then after eight laps it's finished. It's very de-motivating because the whole weekend you are working very hard, you have a great qualifying and are looking forward to the race but then again you retire after eight laps. I don't know what to say, it's been a very tough year."

While television coverage picked up Verstappen coasting out of the first corner, he says the issue actually manifested itself as he accelerated on the pit straight.

"Straight out of the last corner something happened. I upshifted from third to fourth and suddenly all the power cut off and it went into a safe mode. It's very frustrating."

Verstappen's Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said Renault had spoken to the teenager after the race to take responsibility for the retirement.

"He is just enormously frustrated as you can imagine," Horner said. "Once again he is in a great position and no fault of his own another engine issue. Sometimes words escape you. But he has had Alain Prost come and apologize, Renault are going to apologize, but it doesn't change the situation unfortunately."