Ahead of the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, Max Verstappen has joked that he will need to order a new spine due to the circuit conditions.
The Dutch driver had a difficult start to the season, as he did not win a race until round 16 of the season at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
However, since his previous statements of wanting to have some fun before the end of the season, Verstappen has returned to race-winning contention after winning in Malaysia and Singapore.
But the four-time world champion is continuing to try to lower expectations ahead of the United States Grand Prix and the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen celebrates his first victory in Singapore
Both of the next Grands Prix will feature different challenges for Verstappen and Red Bull, as the Circuit of the Americas is incredibly bumpy, and the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is at high altitude; each will cause different issues for the drivers and teams.
With the United States Grand Prix next, Verstappen has already begun thinking about the bumpy conditions at the circuit.
Verstappen said, “I mean, it's very difficult to say. I don't want to say now that I will be in the fight in Austin, but yeah, the last few weekends have been great.
“But I just take it race by race, and once we are in Austin, then we'll see how it will go there. But it's again a very different track. From what I saw in WEC, the track is incredibly bumpy.
“Oh my god, I probably need to order a new spine after the weekend, or become like Robocop. Crazy.
Max Verstappen
“That's again a new challenge for everyone, you know, to deal with those bumps. And then we just go from there. We have to go to Mexico, again, high altitude, everything will run super hot.
“We need to see how the engine is going to perform at that altitude, how the car is behaving, because it's very different. So, you know, there are so many different things that you can get right or wrong in those races, but we'll see.”