Max gives himself a seven or eight

Editor

Max Verstappen has taken to Formula 1 like a duck to water with the Dutch rookie saying his start his been "pretty good".

The 17-year-old became the sport's youngest-ever driver when he stepped into the cockpit of the Toro Rosso at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in March.

Naturally other records, like being the youngest points scorer, have also followed and his maturity when out on track has certainly impressed a lot of pundits.

F1 has reached the halfway stage of the 2015 season and Verstappen, who scored 22 points in the 10 races to date, is delighted with his start to life in F1.

"I think I've had a pretty good start maybe a seven or an eight [out of ten] but I would never give myself the full ten," he is quoted as saying by Crash.net. "I thought we had a really good chance in Hungary after one very disappointing weekend in Silverstone."

The highlight of his career to date came in Budapest last time out when he finished fourth, despite being handed a drive-through penalty late in the race.

He added: "I was incredibly happy, to finish P4 is an incredible result. It was quite tough, especially as my start was quite bad but then I kept focused, I didn't give up at all and I was hunting the people down in front of me.

"I couldn't believe it. I was so happy and even after the finish line I couldn't express my feelings because I was really overwhelmed."

The youngster, though, knows this is a season of learning for him.

"At the beginning of the season it was about improving in qualifying but since Austria it was going in the right direction and at Silverstone it was just a shame I had the problem in qualifying with the driveability," he said. "I'm still learning a lot after having only had one year in car racing, so it can be a bit tricky but the team is helping me a lot.

"I see this year as a big learning curve for me and I'm getting better and better all the time, not just in qualifying but in the other areas too."