47 points adrift of Lewis Hamilton, who heads into the Monza weekend with 5 wins and 5 poles from 7 races, many would understand were Max Verstappen to settle for the runner-up position, aware that overhauling the world champion is a near impossible task.

However, when asked if the superiority of the Mercedes package compromises his own motivation, the Dutchman was in no doubt.

"I don't understand why people think you wouldn't be motivated," he snapped. "You have one of the best jobs in the world, you're driving super-fast cars, and I'm driving third or second, and I had one win. So I find it incredible that people think you wouldn't be motivated.

"It's really stupid," he continued. "I love what I'm doing. Every weekend I come here and I love driving the car, and I want to, of course, try to challenge them, but if it's not possible I settle for the best result possible in the car I have, and then I'm still enjoying it."

Minded of Helmut Marko's claim that he could still secure the title, the youngster said: "Well, we won't give up, but I'm very realistic that at the moment we're just too slow. We need luck to win races and actually gain some points back.

"At the moment it looks like we're still in a championship fight, but every race I'm more or less losing seven points," he continued, "so at one point it will of course be very big, the gap. Like I said, I'm just being realistic, I think it's good.

"But every single weekend I try to of course get the best out of it. I mean, it's not like I'm down or anything, but being realistic. I think in Spa again, we were half a second slower a lap, compared to them, so you can't really fight them at the moment."

Check out our Thursday gallery from Monza, here.