Max Verstappen looks back at Red Bull's turnaround since his disastrous DNF in Australia last season

Max Verstappen opened up about how the DNF in Australia last season proved to be an inflection point of Red Bull's turnaround in the championship.

The Red Bull driver struggled massively last season as he was unable to compete with Charles Leclerc's rapid Ferrari. To make things worse, Max Verstappen ended up suffering a DNF in that race, which meant he would fall further back in the championship fight.

Last season, Australia was the third race on the calendar and the DNF at Albert Park meant Max Verstappen had two DNFs in three races. That also meant that Charles Leclerc enjoyed more than a 40-point advantage over the Red Bull driver in the championship.

It was from that point onwards that Max Verstappen's season turned on its head. The team learned from the mistakes and solved not only the performance deficit but also the reliability issues.

When questioned by Sky Sports F1's David Croft about how the team managed this turnaround, Verstappen said:

"I think last year, our car was very heavily overweight at this stage of the season, so that didn't help. I think last year here we had a big shift in balance between Qualifying and the race, so that caught us out in the race. And yeah, we were not reliable."

"So that, of course, is never nice at the beginning of the year. But we also knew that there was a lot of potential in that car, just from the updates, but especially from the weight side of the car."

He added:

"But yeah, last year was very frustrating here, being slow in the race, retiring from the race. But I think we also understood quite quickly after the weekend, what we did wrong, of course, with the setup. But also, we had to work on our reliability because I think, from then onwards, it was quite alright, in terms of reliability. And of course, we make big steps with the performance of the car."

Max Verstappen on his unflattering record at Albert Park

Max Verstappen's best result at Albert Park is a P3 finish in 2019 (a race that Valtteri Bottas won in his Mercedes).

When asked about his record on the track, the Red Bull driver was quite pragmatic as he admitted that Red Bull has not been as competitive at Albert Park and hence the results haven't been that good. He said:

"Yeah. I mean, of course, it was a bit different back then but yeah, this track, I think it's just because the last few years we've never really been that good at the beginning of the year."

"So, I think if this race would have been in a different place on the calendar then probably we would have had a lot better results here. But that's not how it is. But yeah, for sure we do need a bit of a good result here."

Max Verstappen will be hoping to make a statement at the 2023 F1 Australian GP. The Red Bull driver lost out to his teammate Sergio Perez at Jeddah and will be hoping to repay the favor this weekend.