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Max Verstappen says he has now learned he can sometimes drive at "92%" in Red Bull's Formula 1 car rather than pushing as hard as he did with Toro Rosso.

The 18-year-old followed his record-breaking Spanish Grand Prix victory on his Red Bull debut with a crash-strewn weekend in Monaco.

Verstappen then produced mistake-free drives to fourth and eighth places in Canada and Azerbaijan, and said he had toned down his style now he had settled into a more competitive car.

"I understand the car more and more," said Verstappen.

"We have a great car, so you don't need to go on the limit straight away because you always have margin to improve.

"Let's say in Q1 you don't need to be at 100 or 99%, you can go to 92% and still go through.

"For one-and-a-half years, I was fighting around the top 10 just to go into Q3, so you were already at 100%, just from your first lap in Q1.

"The whole approach is different."

He admitted that this shift in attitude had taken time.

"You need to learn again," said Verstappen.

"It's a different story. It needs a few weekends to grow into that."

The Dutchman said his approach to qualifying in Baku showed how he had changed since Monaco, when one of his crashes came before he had set a lap time in Q1.

"I built it up completely differently to what I did in Monaco," Verstappen said.

"It seemed to work perfectly well because every session I was improving, building up the confidence.

"Q1 to Q2 was a good step and then from Q2 to Q3 you start really pushing it and it would have been a great lap."

Having reached Q3 in Azerbaijan, Verstappen was hampered by two incidents with Valtteri Bottas and only qualified ninth, though he said the team's data estimated second would have been possible with a smooth lap.