Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner believes that despite recent frustrations, Max Verstappen's talent and experience are growing with each passing race.
The Dutch prodigy was hit with a huge disappointment in Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix when a battery issue put the 19-year-old out of a promising race after just ten laps.
Verstappen was understandably upset after his third DNF of the season, but Horner is dismissing the young charger's reaction in light of his continued progress as a driver.
"It is character building but he will come through it strong," Horner said.
"His driving is getting better and better. You can see the performances in the last two or three races, he has really been making a lot of progress, and it is a shame he did not achieve the result he deserved today.
"His driving is getting stronger each month, he is becoming more and more complete, he is performing very well on Saturdays as well now.
"His performance in the race was fantastic, the start, the restart, the way he was hanging on to Hamilton and pulling away from Bottas in the early laps…"
Regardless of the set-back and Verstappen's frustrations, Horner says it's still early days and the season will likely offers opportunities to rejoice.
"He is intelligent. We have just been talking about the performance of the car, with the feedback from this weekend, feeding that into the system to develop the car.
"It is a long season. And it is one chapter on a long story. You can see the trajectory is going in the right direction.
"So for sure he will take disappointment out of the race but on reflection he will see a lot of positives that hopefully will bear fruit later in the season."
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Gallery: All the pictures from Montreal
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