High kerbs are the weakness of our car, says Verstappen after a "boring" race
Three-time world champion Max Verstappen has pinpointed to the high kerbs of the Monte Carlo street circuit as the reason for the lack of pace during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend.
Reigning world champion Max Verstappen endured a difficult weekend in Monaco. He slightly struggled for pace in qualifying, and made a crucial mistake on his final lap in Q3 which saw him end up only P6 on the grid.
The Dutchman was then unable to gain places at the start, and spent the majority of the 78-lap race behind the Mercedes of George Russell. Red Bull attempted a strategy gamble by pitting Verstappen for a set of new Pirelli tyres in the closing stages of the race. Although the championship runaway leader closed in on Russell on his fresh tyres, he was unable to pass the Briton on the narrow streets of the Principality.
“Of course, the most important thing is that Checo was okay following his crash. There was a lot of damage to his car, which was very unfortunate, but luckily he was fine. The red flag ultimately meant that our strategy was ruined, so everyone was just managing tyres until the end of the race and the pit stop did not change much either.
"We had to really slow down a lot to make it to the end of the race and I tried to pass George for two laps but it was extremely difficult. The ride of the car was still not great today and we just didn’t have the pace in qualifying. It ended up being a very boring race for us and not much we could do.
"It's been a bad weekend for us but the positive is that we know what the weakness is in the car and if we can improve this we should get back a lot of lap time. A season like last year doesn’t happen often and we are realistic; we stay very strong as a team, don’t overreact, analyse the race and go from there," the Dutchman added.
Christian Horner confirmed what Verstappen said, claiming that the team has identified the main weakness of the RB20 which is the high kerbs and bumps that have massively hindered the team's performance in Monte Carlo.
"I would say it was a difficult weekend and Monaco is always dictated by qualifying performance, so we faced many challenges going into today. A big congratulations to Charles on his home win, but for us our car never performed at its best here and we need to understand the issues we had on the bumps and kerbs.
"Very disappointed by the crash on lap one, and I think Magnussen should have given more space. Not only did he damage his car, he also took out our car, but thankfully Checo stepped away from it unhurt, which is the most important thing. We have a lot of data to analyse from this weekend and we’ll be looking at everything hard over the next couple of weeks before Canada," Horner concluded.
