Max Verstappen believes the Chinese Grand Prix was a ‘life lesson’ after contact and penalties left him fifth in the final standings.

Verstappen climbed to third on the opening lap before running off the circuit as he tried to pass Lewis Hamilton around the outside.

The Dutchman then made contact with Sebastian Vettel, for which he was handed a 10-second penalty and received two penalty points on his super licence.

Meanwhile, team-mate Daniel Ricciardo went on to win the race after pulling off a series of overtakes to claim the team’s first win of 2018.

The race comes in the wake of the Bahrain Grand Prix, where contact with Hamilton forced Vertappen out, and a spin during the Australian Grand Prix.

He currently sits eighth in the championship standings with 18 points while Ricciardo is four places, and 19 points, better off.

In the wake of the Chinese Grand Prix, Verstappen has admitted that he needs to learn from his mistakes, which he attributes to simply wanting success too much.

“I don’t think I necessarily need to change a lot of things,” Verstappen told F1’s Paddock Pass.

“I of course need to learn from what happened.

“I don’t think necessarily I need to be less aggressive or anything as it has nothing to do with being overly aggressive, maybe it’s just wanting too much.

“Maybe I should just, not even calm down, but maybe oversee the situation a bit more.

“I don’t know why, I think I was quite good at that before but somehow this year, maybe with the previous two races not going your way you want to recover the points and it’s working against you at the moment.

“Of course this is definitely not what I want. It’s a life lesson.”

Red Bull team boss is unconcerned about Verstappen’s start to the season, likening his current form to that of Vettel when the German drove for the team.

“You know, his talent is extremely obvious, his bravery and racing instinct is not in doubt,” Horner said.

“I spoke with Sebastian after the race and he appreciated Max had apologised to him,” he added.

“Yes he’s made some mistakes but I remember when we had Sebastian at a similar stage of his career, it wasn’t uncommon that he also made some mistakes.

“Max will have learned an awful lot from (China) and will put that to good use in the coming races, because we have a very quick car as we’ve demonstrated.”

Formula 1 next heads to Baku for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on April 27-29.