Max Verstappen reduces the championship

Max Verstappen claims he feels no pressure when his championship match with Lewis Hamilton reaches his final stage.

Verstappen is three points behind Hamilton, and there are seven races left this year.

However, at a press conference before the weekend’s Turkish GP, Verstappen stressed that losing the championship to Hamilton would have no real impact on his life.

“I always do my best and I know the team always does their best,” Verstappen said. “If that’s enough first at the end of the year, it’s an amazing achievement, and that’s why we work, right?

“But I think even if we were second, we’ve had a great season, and after all, it won’t change my life. I enjoy doing it and I think it’s very important, too. There really isn’t much to worry about.”

Verstappen’s Red Bull team has not won a title since 2013, and it has been seven years in a row since the victory of its main rival Mercedes. But Verstappen said the atmosphere in his team did not increase the pressure.

“You really shouldn’t stress,” he added. “I know my team is doing their best and they expect it from me and I always try to get the most out of it. So of course we are fully committed to trying this success together, but you can’t force things.

“You just have to work well and work hard together, and then at the end of the season we know where this is taking us. Is it the first or the second? We don’t know.”

Hamilton, who has won seven titles in his career and is fighting for a record eighth, said different drivers handle pressure differently.

“I think you can decide … it’s not about ignoring it because it’s there, but it’s an understanding of what’s going to be,” Hamilton said. “All you can do is prepare in the best way possible, you can just give it 100 percent and what’s coming.

“I’m just not worried about these things. I’m very lucky in the past that I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, but I had an amazing time, a lot of growth, I don’t care ‘what if’, it’s ahead.”

– I’m trying to prepare so far, which means I’ve made sure I’ve done the work with friends back at the factory, Bono [Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington] and the team, and we finally enjoyed it. We have to enjoy it.

“What an amazing season it has been so far, it has been very exciting for fans, it has been massively involved in Netflix around the world, new people are coming in, we finally see two teams neck and neck, which is amazing, and of course we want to win. But you have learning to give it doesn’t override everything in your life. ”