Max Verstappen fears that the unique Monaco street circuit is a “difficult” track for Red Bull as he predicts a difficult weekend at the Principality.
This will be music to the ears of F1 neutrals and especially to fans of Ferrari and McLaren if it means Verstappen is beatable this weekend.
After looking in supreme form earlier in the year, Red Bull has faced a renewed challenge from McLaren across the last two rounds with Lando Norris winning in Miami and finishing a narrow second to Verstappen last time out at Imola.
Now, the Dutchman predicts the Red Bull RB20’s ‘weaknesses’ in riding kerbs and navigating slow corners will make things tricky for him as the Monaco GP weekend unfolds.
“I think looking at the track it’s probably not going to be our best, track just because our car normally struggles a bit over bumps and kerbs.
“We did work on it a bit compared to last year.
“I think so far, most of the tracks that we’ve been to, our low-speed performance has improved a little bit.”
“But I don’t think this is going to be a very easy weekend.
“But I think Monaco never is very straightforward. Even when you have the best car.
“Monaco is a very tricky track to get everything to work, get the tyres to work and a quali lap, for example, you know, red flags, there’s always a lot of disruption, and, a lot of things can go right, but also a lot of things can go wrong.”
In Imola, Verstappen and Red Bull had one of their trickiest weekends to date, suffering throughout practice with balance issues on the RB20 machine.
The Dutchman was able to recover to claim pole and the win by narrow margins and hopes for a smoother ride in Monaco.
However, Verstappen is aware of Ferrari’s form around the principality and is wary of the resurgent McLaren.
“Imola started off really bad and we managed to turn it around,” Verstappen said.
“I wouldn’t want to have a weekend like that again.
“It’s quite stressful and not nice, but, we know that this is a more difficult track for us, even though we have won here in the past.
“In the last few years, I think Ferrari has always been very strong here, plus McLaren lately the last two races [has] really ramped up in performance.
“So they for sure are ones to watch as well.”
Verstappen certainly isn’t shy to label Monaco as a “difficult” track giving his rivals renewed hope he can be thwarted this weekend.
