Max Verstappen's second DNF of the season sees the world champion slip to sixth in the standings, the Dutchman admitting that the RB18's lack of reliability is "unacceptable".

Though the Red Bull never appeared to have the pace of the Ferrari, the Dutchman looked set for a decent points haul and a podium finish.

However, 20 laps from the end, after reporting a "weird fluid smell", the world champion was told to pull off track and stop his car.

"We're already miles behind," he subsequently told the media. "I don't even want to think about the championship fight at the moment. I think it's more important to finish races.

"Of course, today was in general just a bad day again," he continued, "not really having the pace. I was just managing my tyres, trying to bring it to the end because it looked like quite an easy P2.

"I knew I could not fight Charles and there was no point to try and put pressure on him.," he admitted. "But we didn't even finish the race, so it's pretty frustrating and unacceptable."

In the moments before the race, the Dutchman's mechanics were seen working on the car on the grid.

"I knew there was a problem, so there was always going to be a question mark over finishing the race, but these kind of things, if you want to fight for the title, cannot happen."

"It's totally understandable, his frustration," agreed team boss, Christian Horner. "That was a really disappointing result not to finish the race.

"We don't know what the issue is yet," he admitted, "I don't think it was actually engine-related, I think it might be a fuel issue, but we need to get the car back, we need to look at what's exactly happened. Until we get the car back, we don't have the data, we don't have the info.

"Desperately frustrating," he concluded. "As Max said, we didn't have the pace to race Charles today, they were in a league of their own, but frustrating not to be bagging those points."

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