Max Verstappen insisted ‘s*** happens’ after the triple world champion suffered his first retirement from a race in two years at the Australian Grand Prix.

The Dutchman started from pole but was overtaken by the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz in the early laps.

Shortly afterwards smoke started to come from the rear of Verstappen’s Red Bull, resulting in the Dutchman slowly making his way back to the pits to retire from a race for the first time in two years.

This allowed Ferrari to take full advantage as Sainz took the chequered flag first from team-mate Charles Leclerc – with the latter now four points behind Verstappen in the standings.

After the race, Verstappen said: ‘S*** happens. It is important that we understand why it happened and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.’

Max Verstappen retired from the Australian Grand Prix from second with a brake issue

Verstappen noticed the issue at the start of the race and he was overtaken by Carlos Sainz before retiring shortly after

Verstappen could have matched his own record of ten straight wins if he finished first in Melbourne

Explaining the cause of his retirement, he added: ‘We could see in the data as soon as lights went off, the right rear brake just stuck on.

‘The temperature just kept on increasing, it was basically driving with the handbrake on. I already felt car was really weird to drive in some corners. Very snappy.

‘While [during] the laps to the grid, the car was really spot on. I was very happy with what we were doing. But that explains if brake was stuck on, that doesn’t help.

‘We had a lot of good races in a row, a lot of basically good reliability and I knew the day would come that you end up having a retirement and unfortunately that day was today.’

Verstappen’s last retirement came courtesy of a fuel leak at the 2022 Australian Grand Prix.

Since then he and Red Bull have been faultless as they have dominated the last two championships.

That domination carried over to the start of this season with back-to-back victories.

If he had taken victory in Melbourne, he would have matched his own personal record of ten straight wins.

Ferrari took full advantage with Carlos Sainz winning the race from team-mate Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris

However, Ferrari have appeared to close the gap somewhat, with Sergio Perez – who finished fifth – insisting Red Bull would not have won the race even if Verstappen had carried on.

There were a number of other notable retirements with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell also failing to finish at Melbourne.

It was the first time that neither Hamilton or Verstappen finished a race since they collided at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.