Max Verstappendescribed his Monaco Grand Prix weekend as “really tricky” as he finished out of contention for the podium in sixth.
The championship leader added only eight points to his tally in Monaco as his closest rival, Charles Leclerc, won the race.
Verstappen finished in the same position he qualified in sixth after spending the entire race running between the two Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. He described his afternoon as “quite boring”.
“We just finished where we started,” Verstappen told Sky. “The strategy got ruined with the red flag so we had to really back it out on the medium.
“We knew that 77 laps on a medium tyre is going to be extremely hard. So from lap one on the restart, it was [about] driving four seconds off the pace and chill. It’s no work-out whatsoever. Just really, really boring.”
It was Red Bull’s worst weekend of the season so far and the fewest points the team had scored since the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix, where neither driver finished. Verstappen’s team mate Sergio Perez retired on the opening lap following a massive accident involving both Haas cars of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg at the start on the run up to Massenet.
“This has been a really tricky, challenging weekend for us with, in the end, a lot of damage with Checo’s car,” Verstappen said. “Overall, just probably a weekend to forget, but also a lot to learn from.
Despite the RB20 struggling around the Monaco circuit across the weekend, Verstappen says Red Bull should be able to avoid similar performances over the rest of the season.
“I think the only positive that comes out of this weekend is that we understand what our big weakness is and that’s what we really have to work on,” he said.
“Because I think if we can solve that – or at least make it, let’s say, decent – we immediately gain a lot of lap time and that is promising. But we have to do it.”
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2024 Monaco Grand Prix
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