Verstappen reacts to Toro Rosso rumours

Max Verstappen has firmly dismissed the suggestion that he could be demoted back to Toro Rosso as punishment for his error-prone start to the campaign. Verstappen's hopes of winning the Monaco Grand Prix went up in smoke as he crashed at the swimming pool chicane in Saturday practice.

The slam into the barriers was a near carbon-copy of a similar incident in qualifying two years ago, and caused enough damage to force him to sit out of the shootout this time around.

As such, Verstappen could only watch as his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo secured pole position in record time and the Dutchman was fighting through traffic for ninth place while his colleague won the race up front.

Both team principal Christian Horner and Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko warned that Verstappen must curb his impatience if he is to succeed with the team.

READ MORE: RBR "losing patience"
VIDEO: Verstappen's Monaco practice crash

Verstappen was elevated to Red Bull in 2016 when Daniil Kvyat was dropped three races into a similarly hapless campaign, which came to a head when he crashed Sebastian Vettel out of the Russian Grand Prix, prompting the German to confront his former team.

Verstappen has made errors in all six races this year - including a wipe-out with Ricciardo in Baku - but he is sure that a place in the senior side remains his.

"Back to Toro Rosso? That's not possible at all," Verstappen told De Limburger.

The 20-year-old has become something of a figure of fun amid his missteps this season and a website has been created charting his crashes, named crashstappen.com, which does not impress the driver.

"It's always easy to scold someone in this way, rather than face to face," he said.

"I call these people keyboard warriors."