Verstappen: I might headbutt anyone who keeps asking me to change!

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Max Verstappen is showing no signs of backing down when it comes to his aggressive racing style.

The Red Bull driver has been under fire for recent mistakes that have cost him valuable points in the 2018 world championship.

As well as crashing into his team mate in Baku, Verstappen's practice accident in Monaco meant he started the race from the back row when he had been expecting to be vying for victory.

His approach to the sport was a focus of questions in Thursday's official FIA press conference ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix. And it was clear that the Dutch driver's patience was wearing thin.

"I get really tired of all the comments about me, that I should change my approach," he said. "I will never do that, because it's brought me to where I am now.

"Everybody has those comments but I don't listen to them. I just so my own thing.

"Of course, since the beginning of the year it hasn't been going so well," he admitted. "Not in the way I'd like it. [There's been] a few mistakes, especially Monaco and China.

"But it doesn't make sense to keep talking about it, because I get really tired of it," he continued. "It feels like there are no better questions out there than to keep asking me about what happened the previous weekend.

Verstappen seeking to 'regroup' after 'unlucky' start to 2018

"I'm just focussing on what's ahead," he added. "And I'm confident that I can turn things around.

"The speed is there. I've been quick every single weekend," he pointed out. "It would be much more of a problem if I was really slow, because that's a critical problem."

When a reporter from the Daily Mail tabloid newspaper again pressed the question of why he had been so accident prone this season, Verstappen bared his teeth.

"Like I said at the beginning of this press conference," he said, before pausing for a long moment. I get really tired of all these questions, so ... I think if I get a few more, I'll headbutt someone."

The question was indeed asked once again, by a different journalist clearly up for the challenge.

"I've had two which were my fault," he responded, adding that this was in itself an improvement on 2016 when he's made three serious mistakes in a single weekend.

"It is not as dramatic as people say it is," he insisted. "I haven't scored the points which I should have scored, but that was not only my fault.

"It could have been better, but everybody makes it so dramatic."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.