Max Verstappen had actually given up on pole long before qualifying in Monaco. But the end result is significantly worse than what Red Bull had hoped for. Not only is Verstappen not on a GP pole for the first time in the current Formula 1 season – he only started sixth. In Monaco of all places, it was a minor disaster. Under the pressure of a hundredth-of-a-second thriller, the otherwise perfect driver made a mistake on the last shot.
Throughout qualifying, it was clear that Red Bull’s declared goal – second place on the grid next to the clear favorite (and eventual pole-sitter) Charles Leclerc – would be a hairy affair. The RB20 was strong in the first sector, but from Mirabeau, and especially over the kerbs of the harbor chicane, the swimming pool and finally through Rascasse and out onto the finish straight, the car bucked. This is also evident in the comparison with Leclerc’s pole lap.
“You can see it in sector two. We are so bad and you can’t touch the kerbs because it disturbs the car too much,” said a very talkative and very frustrated Verstappen after qualifying. He admits that this is not something that surprised the team. Memories of Singapore 2023 are awakened. The fact that the competition is closer today has now exposed a fundamental weakness of the Red Bull concept.
Verstappen points to Monaco failure: Exposed by Ferrari & McLaren
No suspension setup in the world can solve these problems. “We drove softer, harder, everything, but the car is like a go-kart, like driving without suspension,” Verstappen explains to Motorsport-Magazin.com. “It bounces, it doesn’t absorb any kerbs, any bumps, any unevenness. It’s almost unbelievable how many times I almost bounced into the wall in the last corner.”
Verstappen almost has to laugh about his radio message broadcast on TV that Mirabeau and the entrance to the harbor chicane are a problem: “We don’t even mention the corners where we are really bad! We just know them, we drive around the problems.” Sergio Perez was already eliminated in Q1, more on that here:
“And that’s nothing new, we’ve had that since 2022,” confirms Verstappen. “In the last few years we’ve had such a big advantage, it masked that because we were winning in the corners, where kerbs and bumps aren’t such a big limitation. But now that everyone is catching up, if you don’t improve your weakest point there, they’ll expose you. That’s what happened to us this weekend.”
Verstappen ends up in the wall instead of on the first row
On the first Q3 attempt, Verstappen had set the fastest time in the first sector with 18.255 seconds, two tenths faster than Leclerc and Oscar Piastri. But these two took three tenths off him in sectors two and three, relegating him to third place. With more than a tenth behind, Verstappen knew he really had to squeeze everything out of the RB20 in the final attempt to make it to the front row he was aiming for.
And this time his car skidded on the wave in Ste. Devote. The rear broke off and he touched the guardrail at the exit. “Thank God it wasn’t bad, the car probably wasn’t damaged,” says Marko. But it was bad enough that the lap was over and Verstappen had to abort. He just shrugs his shoulders and sees all the previous laps as good, except for the last one: “The car is on a knife edge. That’s just how it is.”
Verstappen warns Red Bull: We have to understand the car
“Starting position six is a real disappointment,” Marko concludes. With second place, at least here in the principality, where overtaking is not easy, there would have been some strategic hope of victory with at least a passable race pace. If the Red Bull adds fuel weight, that calms the balance. Now that is irrelevant, admits Marko: “Extraordinary circumstances would have to arise. If we get close to the podium, that would be very, very good.”
What is also really sobering is the fact that nothing has been done at Red Bull since 2022 to get the bump problems under control. Verstappen’s frustration about this is evident after qualifying. He does not see a quick solution to the problem with updates: “First we have to understand it. Which we clearly do not do.”
Verstappen doesn’t want to talk about a threat to the title race yet. After all, bumps in the road aren’t so critical everywhere: “The overall performance is still OK. We knew this would be one of our most difficult weekends. It also shows that everyone else is catching up. I’m just aware that we’re not perfect.”