Max Verstappen finds ‘only positive’ for Red Bull after ‘boring’ Monaco GP
Max Verstappen wasn't happy with his Red Bull RB20 in Monaco qualifying.
Max Verstappen has said the “only positive” he found from the Monaco Grand Prix was that Red Bull have identified the weakness that hindered their performance over the weekend.
The reigning World Champion started and finished in sixth in a race where each member of the top 10 started and finished the race in exactly the same place on Sunday, with on-track overtakes at a premium.
Max Verstappen: ‘We know what our weakness is’ at Red Bull
Additional reporting by Sam Cooper
On a weekend where Red Bull’s rivals were able to leapfrog them around Monaco, with Charles Leclerc taking a first home victory around Monte Carlo, Verstappen admitted that without opportunities to overtake around the lap, his race ended up being a “boring” one.
However, having said after qualifying that his RB20 resembled a “go-kart” in how it handled through the kerbs, with its suspension not proving friendly over the harsh bumps of Monaco, the three-time World Champion said the team now believe they know what went wrong for them.
If they are able to find a solution, then he believes the car “really comes alive again” – with the RB20 having been the class of the field for much of the season so far.
“Of course, after the red flag, our strategy was a bit ruined,” Verstappen explained to media including PlanetF1.com after the race.
“Because then we had to put the medium to the end, because everyone had a free stop, and that meant that we have to save a lot.
“You know, I just tried to follow George [Russell]. We were massively off the pace, I was trying to manage the tyre.
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“Of course, it was quite boring out there, you know, you’re driving literally half throttle on the straights, some places a gear higher than you would normally do.
“Yeah, four seconds off the pace more or less. So that’s not really racing.
“Overall, it’s been a really, really bad weekend for us. I guess the only positive out of it is that we know what our weakness is and, if we can improve that only by a little bit already, we will gain a lot of lap time.
“So yeah, there’s a lot of room for improvement and, if we can sort that out, then our car really comes alive again.”
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