diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index a070adb3..e4330983 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 VERSION = 2.1.1
 
 TEST_ARGS ?= ""
-PYTHON_VERSION ?= `python -c 'import platform; print("{0}.{1}".format(platform.python_version_tuple()[0], platform.python_version_tuple()[1]))'`
+PYTHON_VERSION ?= `python -c 'import platform; print(".".join(platform.python_version_tuple()[0:2]))'`
 
 clean:
 	rm -f kubernetes-core-${VERSION}.tar.gz