Max Verstappen looked to play down concerns from Red Bull about a potential exit from the team, after a difficult Bahrain Grand Prix.

Verstappen finished sixth last time out in Sakhir, 34 seconds behind race winner Oscar Piastri, but remains within eight points of the Drivers’ Championship lead at this early stage of the season.

Max Verstappen responds to Marko’s ‘great concern’ around potential Red Bull exit

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

The reigning World Champion is under contract until 2028 at Red Bull, but it is understood a ‘performance element’ exists within his deal whereby he would be able to discuss terms with other teams, if he sits below a certain threshold in the Drivers’ standings after a significant portion of the season.

Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko expressed his worries about Verstappen’s future in the context of the team’s current form after the race, telling Sky Germany: “The concern is great. Improvements have to come in the near future so that he has a car with which he can win again.

“We have to create a basis with a car so that he can fight for the World Championship.”

When asked about Marko’s words in Jeddah, Verstappen insists his main focus is on trying to improve the package underneath him with the RB21.

“I don’t know, to be honest,” Verstappen told media including PlanetF1.com when asked about why Marko would be concerned about his future.

“I just keep working, keep trying to improve the car. Now, naturally, Bahrain wasn’t a great weekend for us. I think we were all pretty disappointed with that.

More on Max Verstappen’s future and difficult Bahrain Grand Prix

👉 Red Bull find pit-stop error cause with RB21 update plan revealed

👉 F1 driver contracts: What is the current contract status of every driver on the 2025 grid?

“We just keep on trying to improve the car, come up with new ideas to try on the car.

“Competition is tough, and that’s how I go about my weeks – just trying to improve the situation.”

When asked by Sky F1’s David Croft if Marko had ‘got the wrong end of the stick’ regarding his future, Verstappen replied: “No, I think just focus on commentating, I’ll focus on driving, and then you don’t need to think about any other scenarios.”

He added: “I mean, honestly, a lot of people are talking about [the future], except me.

“Like I said before, I just want to focus on my car [and] work with the people in the team. That’s the only thing that I’m thinking about in Formula 1 at the moment. I’m very relaxed.

“I am happy. I’m just not very happy with, of course, our car, but I think it goes for everyone. You know, we all want to be better.

“I think there is no secret about that, so that’s what we are trying to trying to improve.

“I think we had really good chats in the last few weeks already with the people about the car.

“I think we all very much aligned, so like I said, we’re just trying to improve the situation. It doesn’t change anything, so just keep going.”

With the season only four races in, Verstappen said he is not looking at any potential title challenge just yet, with a significant portion of the year still to be run.

He indirectly pointed to the swing in performance between Red Bull and McLaren last season as evidence of how the course of the year can change, but hopes he and the team will be able to pick up their performance in the coming rounds.

“I’m not thinking about that. I just go race by race,” he said of any title prospects.

“Hopefully it will be better than Bahrain. If we can be bit in the middle of the two [Bahrain and Suzuka performance, ed.] I think we can already be happy with that, and we just move on, and then the rest is out of my hands anyway.

“I think at the moment, of course, we are not the quickest. And then, actually, it’s very tough to fight for a championship, but it’s still a very long road.

“I mean, we were sitting around this time last year, you know, round five, it was all looking great, and we all know, of course, how the season ended up – so I’m hopeful that we can still improve things, and we’ll see what we get.”

Read next: Lewis Hamilton blow as F1 chief issues major calendar update