Cancellation ruins even the last chance

After he had not managed to get beyond sixth place on the grid in qualifying, Max Verstappen had more or less already given up on Formula 1 in Monaco. In the race he achieved exactly the result he had actually expected: sixth place. “We didn’t deserve the podium this weekend,” was Verstappen’s sober conclusion. Not even Red Bull’s strategy poker worked.

Red Bull had opted for hard tyres at the start, hoping for a late race interruption. This would theoretically have allowed Verstappen to stay out longer than the top four, who had started on medium. Or, to be more specific, he could have waited longer for a red flag or a safety car, then got the tyre change cheaper and gained a few places.

Unfortunately, the opposite happened. The race was over after the first lap. was cancelled due to a serious accident. The leaders were now able to switch to hard and drive 77 laps to the finish. While Verstappen had to switch to medium: “The strategy was ruined by the red flag. We had to really ease off on the medium. 77 laps on the medium would be extremely difficult.”

No Red Bull strategy can help Verstappen in Monaco

“We’re basically driving at half throttle on the straights, in some places a gear higher than usual, more or less four seconds slower than we could,” says Verstappen. “Absolutely no work, just boring.” Towards the middle of the race, he sarcastically asked for a pillow on the radio as he drove lap after lap around the track between the Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen is in 6th position after the restart
Max Verstappen spent the entire race between two Mercedes, Photo: Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

On lap 51, he was shaken awake again by Hamilton when he came in for a pit stop. Verstappen promptly did a murderous in-lap, almost one and a half seconds faster than Hamilton’s, also changed to hard tires and stayed ahead of him. With the new tires, he was able to make up the 20 seconds he had lost on Russell within just ten laps. But he still couldn’t get past. And then it was finally over.

“There wasn’t much emotion involved, it was one of those things you just accept,” says Verstappen, still very relaxed. No trace of the young hothead in Monaco, he now presents himself as a mature world champion. “It’s not about whether I’m having fun, it’s about learning what the problem is and how we can solve it.”

No panic at Red Bull: Monaco a critical learning experience

Monaco has shown Red Bull’s problems on bumps and kerbs more clearly than ever before. Verstappen gave his opinion on this in detail on Saturday – every bump ruins the car’s balance, and the team does not know the reason for the problem that has been present for years. After the race, he has nothing more to add: “I’m not thinking about the championship or whatever. There are still so many races to go. Some better for us, some perhaps a little worse.”

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Red Bull team boss Christian Horner is not making a drama out of Verstappen’s comments dripping with frustration. Just remember Verstappen’s statements at times when the car was often not even capable of winning: “He is just very direct, honest. Yesterday we had a good debrief after qualifying, in which he went into detail about the exact feeling for the driver. He sacrificed a lot of time for the engineers.”

Horner declared the bump and kerb problems a priority for Red Bull, as he also had to admit today that the team does not yet know the reasons behind them. The Racing Bulls, for example, did not have any of these problems this weekend, although they are working with last year’s suspension of the RB19: “We need to understand whether this is something that we have somehow created ourselves.” There is still no time frame for solving the problem.

“But I mean, this car has won five races,” Horner recalls. “Now we are in the middle part of the championship. Let’s wait and see how things develop in Montreal, Barcelona, ​​Austria, Silverstone, these next races. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. We expected this weekend to be tough.” Montreal should be better – even if you have to take the kerbs there again to be fast. The asphalt has been resurfaced. So Verstappen, Horner and co. are holding back on making predictions.

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