Red Bull is getting ready to try for a fourth straight win at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday, but Max Verstappen has cautioned them they cannot risk a repetition of what occurred at Imola.
The 26-year-old Dutchman is hoping to set a new F1 record this weekend as he aims for his ninth consecutive pole position. The Dutchman has won two of the last three races on the streets of Monte Carlo, where he resides.
In the previous race at Imola, Verstappen had complained over the radio about his lack of balance and problems with the front wing; he was only 0.725 seconds ahead of Lando Norris at the finish.
He was very clear in telling his crew before the race on Thursday that he didn’t want to experience anything bad in Monaco again.
All we have to do is stay alert. Imola got off to a terrible start, but we were able to turn it around. Verstappen told the written press in Monaco, including Total-Motorsport.com, “I wouldn’t want to have a weekend like that again; it’s quite stressful and not nice.”
“We’ll see where we’re at; we know this is a more difficult track, even though we’ve won here before. It’s quite complicated.”
Verstappen predicts a fight between McLaren and Ferrari.
This may be a circuit where Red Bull struggles because the team focuses more on getting the best straight-line performance possible and slow-speed turns tend to be a weakness. Verstappen also thinks that the Austrian team may face a variety of problems due to the race’s unpredictability.
According to the circuit, Verstappen continued, “it’s not going to be our best as our car normally struggles over the bumps and kerbs.” We did make some improvements to it during the previous year, and thus far, we’ve seen a slight improvement in our low-speed performance on the majority of the tracks we’ve visited. However, I don’t anticipate this weekend being very simple. Monaco is never the same.
“When you should have the better vehicle, it’s quite simple, but Monaco is a really difficult track to have everything to function, like the tyres working, on a qualifying lap, for example. Red flag: There’s a lot of disturbance all the time. While many things can go wrong, many things can also go right.
Verstappen responded, “Naturally it’s one of the more difficult tracks for us, plus Ferrari in the last few years have always been very very strong here,” when asked about Ferrari and McLaren’s performance after reducing the deficit at Imola. Perhaps McLaren’s performance has improved over the past two races.
“They are undoubtedly the ones to watch, and you might be in for some surprises in Monaco.” These kinds of things may happen in Monaco because Esteban [Ocon] had an incredible qualifying lap last year.
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