Max Verstappen admits that Red Bull’s persistent Achilles’ heel in Formula 1 – low-speed corners and kerb-riding – again hampered his qualifying effort in Monaco on Saturday.
The reigning world champion only muster the fifth-fastest time in the highly disputed shootout, over seven tenths off pole.
However, a late penalty for Lewis Hamilton, who impeded him during qualifying, bumped as bumped the Dutchman up to fourth on the grid. But for Verstappen and Red Bull, Monaco remains a puzzle they cannot fully solve.
Verstappen had sounded the alarm on Thursday, predicting a “damage limitation” weekend for the Milton Keynes squad. Free practice on Friday confirmed his fears, with the RB21 struggling to find grip through Monaco’s notorious low-speed sections.
After FP2, where he described the car’s performance as “not very good”, Verstappen revealed that his engineers had pushed the car’s set-up boundaries perhaps too far, overcomplicating the RB21’s configuration.
"It’s never liked it and still doesn’t like it"
Overnight tweaks appeared to improve the car’s form in FP3, but come qualifying, a miracle pole lap never materialized.
“It’s a little bit better, but we’re just weak in low speed, and then also where you have to take kerbs and the camber drops away from you,” Verstappen said after qualifying.
“That’s why our car doesn’t like that; it’s never liked it and still doesn’t like it.”
©RedBull
The car's discomfort over the bumps and kerbs of the principality's street circuit is nothing new. Since the start of Formula 1’s ground-effect era in 2022, Red Bull’s dominance has faltered on tracks demanding agility over brute aerodynamic force.
“I mean, in the FP2, it was not very good. The problem is, normally, yes, we can fine-tune our balance, we find performance,” he said.
“But when a car is not performing at low speed, it’s not performing. It doesn’t matter what you do with the set-up, and that’s our problem. It’s always been our problem from the start of 22’, and it’s still our problem.”
"Just not our track"
While Verstappen’s track record in Monaco includes a victory in 2023 and a podium in 2022, last year’s sixth-place finish and this weekend’s qualifying result underline a recurring pattern: Red Bull’s formula simply doesn’t gel with the circuit’s demands.
“Yeah, I mean, of course, you always hope for more,” he explained. “You try to solve issues, but yeah, our car just doesn’t like low-speed corners, and especially the low-speed here in Monaco, with all the curbs and stuff. Yeah, it’s just not our track.”
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“I could have been a little bit closer, I think, but again we just didn’t have the grip,” he said. “So when you don’t have the grip around here, you can’t fully extract everything out of it.
“So then it doesn’t matter if it’s three tenths, four tenths, seven tenths – you’re just not fast enough.”
©RedBull
The 27-year-old’s focus has now shifted to salvaging points in Sunday’s race.
But whether he can turn fourth on the grid into a podium, or even a win, will depend on strategy and luck in a race where tactics rather than pace will help Red Bull keep its campaign on track.
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