Max Verstappen has conceded that he was forced into ‘survival mode’ during the sprint in China rather than focusing on attacking old rival Lewis Hamilton.

From second on the grid at the Shanghai International Circuit, four-time F1 champion Verstappen had to settle for third at the end of the 19 laps in his Red Bull as his hopes of threatening Hamilton in his Ferrari gave way to a losing battle against McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.

It was still six vital points for Verstappen in the battle for this year’s drivers’ championships, allowing him to move within two of early leader Lando Norris after the McLaren driver could only finish eighth to pick up a single point.

“If you look at it like that, I think it is positive,” said Verstappen. “Of course, I tried to give it a go because I also had Oscar behind me pushing, so I was trying to keep out of the DRS that helps a lot on the back straight.

“But unfortunately, the last eight laps, I would say, we just didn’t have the pace to the others, so I was just trying to survive out there.

“I will definitely take that P3. Even the cars behind were catching up quite a lot. It was tough out there to manage the tyres somehow. But it’s okay. We’ll try to do better.”

It appeared at one stage midway through the race that Verstappen would challenge Hamilton whose tyres appeared to be graining. But the seven-time F1 champion managed to come through that phase to pull away and leave Verstappen, instead, to try and fend off Piastri.

With qualifying and the grand prix to come, Verstappen added: “We’ll try to make it better. We’ll look into the data to see what we can improve on the car.

“In general, we just lack a bit of overall pace, and then, of course, naturally, you have to push a bit harder. You kill your tyres a bit more, so that makes it very difficult.”