Max Verstappen thought it would be impossible to win the 2022 world championship after suffering two pit stops in the first three races.

Mechanical problems took the 2021 world champion out of the Bahrain and Australian GPs, and the Dutchman could only watch Charles Leclerc win both races and open up a 46-point lead.

However, five stages later, the game turned completely around. Verstappen took four wins and Leclerc had two retirements, leaving the Red Bull driver 28 points ahead of the Monegasque - who was also overtaken by Sergio Perez and dropped to third.

Despite now being in a comfortable position, Verstappen acknowledged that his reliability problems at the start of the season made him think he would no longer have a chance.

"Starting the season before you do any racing, you don't know," Verstappen said on the podcast . "Maybe we have a good car, maybe not. So it seemed like our car was competitive to be in the fight for the championship."

"But after dropping out twice and being 46 points behind, I thought 'this championship is lost, it's not going to happen,' or at least the recovery will take a long time. So basically in three races, we turned the game around as a team and now we are in the lead."

Despite emphatically reversing the trend of the first three rounds of 2022, Verstappen warned that Red Bull cannot relax.

"It's quite satisfying, but of course we know that it can also change quickly, so we have to be cautious," Verstappen said.

"We really need to focus on not dropping out anymore because the two we've had are too many. The races contested so far have been a bit frantic and crazy."