Despite claiming his third win of the year, Max Verstappen insists that Red Bull must address its ongoing reliability issues.

One very simple stat to emerge after the opening five races of the 2022 season is that when Max Verstappen finishes a race he wins, and with three wins from those opening races Bahrain and Melbourne can only be seen as lost opportunities for the world champion and his team.

Though he held off Charles Leclerc in Miami, the Monegasque has scored a podium finish in four of the opening races, while it was only a mistake that saw him lose out at Imola.

Nonetheless, Leclerc still holds a 19 point lead in the championship, and Verstappen is aware that Red Bull must address its "hit and miss" reliability.

Indeed, had it not been for a sensor issue which cost him an estimated 30 horsepower - at one stage losing him around 30s over the course of two laps - teammate Sergio Perez might have made it two Bulls on the Miami podium.

"We still have issues we have to solve," admits Verstappen. "We are quick but, as you can see, my Friday was terrible, which was not great if you want to have a good weekend.

"Also I think Checo had a few issues in the race, so we have to be on top of that. We have a lot of potential, but we need to make sure it's reliable.

"We just have to nail down a really positive weekend without issues. I think of course in Imola we had that but it's still a bit of a hit and miss, too much."

Referring to the race, especially in light of Saturday's mistake which cost him a possible pole, and the troubles encountered on Friday which cost him precious track time, the Dutchman said: "Of course, it's a very good comeback.

"I didn't do a practice start," he continued, "so I didn't know what to expect in the actual start. But we had a good launch, and I saw the opportunity to go around the outside in Turn 1 so I tried. Luckily it worked.

"Of course, I was not very happy with that safety car," he admitted, "but of course fully understandable, what happened, and of course you cannot be too disappointed about it because also in the past it has benefitted me in some races.

"I knew it was going to be a tough one to the end, it was quite physical out there, now the next 10 laps we had to be flat-out! On a track like this it's not easy."

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