Verstappen vows to continue to flirt with track limits to push Hamilton and Mercedes

Max Verstappen has confirmed he will continue to flirt with track limits in order to remain in the hunt to wrestle the F1 title away from Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes.

Following a poor pre-season during which Red Bull comfortably had the quickest car, Hamilton and Mercedes have recovered to win two of the first three races, with the Briton opening up an eight-point lead over the Dutchman.

Verstappen has been forced to push himself in order to beat Hamilton, but after exceeding track limits in the season-opening race in Bahrain that cost him the win, he followed up by doing so twice in Portimão to miss out on pole and the fastest lap.

"I am just trying to get out of the car one way or the other on the same level as Mercedes," said Verstappen.

"I can also just easily not be in that topic of using track limits or whatever, but then I would be quite comfortably behind the Mercedes which I don’t like. I always try to get the best possible result out of it.

“Basically, I went twice outside of the track limits [in Portugal] where it cost me a pole and fastest lap but it is also because I don’t settle for second or third.”

After this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, F1 will head to Monaco where the barriers lining the circuit provide drivers with potentially race-ending consequences should they attempt to push the boundaries.

Accepting the fact F1 shares tracks with other categories, Verstappen has declared he would be supportive of "hard limits" at circuits.

“Some tracks are just a bit more difficult to police with track limits and we do need to find a solution," added Verstappen.

"Of course, I do understand some tracks we race on with MotoGP and they want different kerbs to what we like but I think we still need to find a bit of a middle way which works for both.

“With our cornering speeds, basically we can really abuse the whole track because of the grip we have with the cars which just makes it really difficult sometimes to really judge proper track limits.

“From my side, I think we should try and put a bit more gravel back in places. That is sometimes not what tracks want because when you have track days and people go off, the gravel comes onto the track and they need to clean it and it all costs money to put it back in place.

“But it is just sometimes a bit confusing, also from the outside where some places you run onto a kerb, some places are policed with a white line.

"We can make it a lot better by making sure that there is a hard limit when you go off a kerb or whatever.”