Max Verstappen says he is rivalling McLaren's Fernando Alonso for having the most bad luck in the 2017 Formula One season after retiring from the Belgian Grand Prix.
Verstappen had been running in fifth place when his Red Bull car suffered a cylinder failure in its internal combustion engine on the eighth lap, forcing him into an early retirement as his RB13 ground to a halt on the Kemmel Straight, directly in front of a huge crowd of Dutch fans.
His latest issue means Verstappen has now suffered six DNF's from the opening 12 races of the 2017 season -- two of which were due to first-lap clashes. Alonso is the only driver on the grid to have failed to finish more races than Verstappen, having retired eight times so far this year.
"It's now 50% of the races [ended] in retirement," Verstappen said. It's unbelievable, like I said on the radio, I just can't believe that those things happen.
"Of course, in the beginning, you say maybe it's just bad luck or whatever, [but] I'm actually competing against Fernando in terms of retirements. I'm not happy at all. I am very disappointed for retiring and the fans who buy an expensive ticket to watch and I retire after eight laps. No words.
"It's very de-motivating because the whole weekend you are working very hard," he added. "You have a great qualifying and are looking forward to the race but then again you retire after eight laps. I don't know what to say, it's been a very tough year."
Verstappen is sixth in the drivers' world championship standings, 61 points adrift of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and only 11 points ahead of Force India's Sergio Perez.
When asked how many more retirements it would take before he would consider leaving Red Bull in the search for a more reliable car, Verstappen replied: "To be honest, I'm not even thinking about that. We just need to solve it within the team, because for a top team those things can't happen.
"I'm not too worried about the future, what's happening next year, I just want to finish races and have good results. The results are not happening, so you don't care about next year or the year after at this time. We need to talk. We will always talk about, at the moment I am not a happy person and I look forward to going home."