The 20-year-old has been dominated the F1 headlines since last Sunday following his contentious collision with Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes in Bahrain and the resulting fall-out which saw Hamilton call his rival a “d***head” live on air.
Hamilton claimed afterwards that the Dutchman had shown him a lack of respect while even Verstappen’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo insisted he was “too greedy” in pushing the Brit wide at Turn 1.
But Verstappen insists he will not be switching up his approach any time soon as the Red Bull driver targets an improved Sunday this time around, if not even a first podium finish since winning in Mexico last October.
“It’s always important to score points and that’s always the target, but we are here to finish on the podium or win races. That’s why we’re here,” he said, when asked whether he might adopt a more conservative racing style in Shanghai.
“That’s what I will try to do again this weekend. So, for me, there won’t be a change.”
And Verstappen insists he is confident of performing well in the Far East this weekend going off the Milton Keynes team’space last time out.
He added: “The car is very quick, I think especially in the race. I think we know in qualifying we are losing out a bit, just on pure performance, on top speed.
“But as soon as that all calms down a bit in the race, yeah, I was very confident [in Bahrain].
“For example, before we went into the race to still move up a lot of positions, because I think the car was definitely capable of just driving back to the podium.
“So yeah, I’m just looking forward to get started again here, because we have a good package, and there are a lot of good things coming. So, yeah, ready to go.”
