In an incident uncannily similar to his mistake in 2016, Max Verstappen crashed during today's final practice session. Despite the best efforts of his crew who worked throughout the break repairing his car, the late discovery of gearbox damage meant the Dutchman was unable to take part in qualifying.

Meanwhile, similarly to 2016, teammate Daniel Ricciardo went on to take pole, recording the fastest ever lap of the Monaco track and beating Sebastian Vettel by 0.229s.

This morning's crash is the latest in a series of incidents this year, Verstappen finally appearing to get his act together with a podium finish in Barcelona.

However, speaking to Channel 4 following today's session, team boss Christian Horner made it clear that the youngster needs to raise his game.

"This place bites and he got bitten pretty hard today in a session that doesn't really count for anything, other than setting the car up," said the Briton.

"He's in a car that's capable of winning this grand prix and that will hurt him even more because you don't get that many opportunities to win a Monaco Grand Prix," he added.

"He needs to learn from it and stop making these errors. He knows that more than anybody and I would imagine that was a pretty painful qualifying for him watching what could have been.

Horner hopes that seeing teammate Ricciardo take pole so emphatically will have an impact of the Dutch driver.

"I don't know what else will," he said. "We've got a great car, he's a phenomenally fast driver and would have been able to be competing for pole today, and for the whole team to only be running one-legged with such a strong car is frustrating.

"But I have to compliment all the guys in the garage," he added, "we had both crews working hard to get him back out into that session but unfortunately this time it was not meant to be."

"Daniel's been on it all weekend," he said, referring to Ricciardo. "He's been quickest in every practice session, every qualifying session and he's delivered two great laps that were capable of pole so he's done an amazing job.

"It feels a little bittersweet," he admitted, "so delighted for the pole but we should have had two cars up there. It's a frustrating with such a fast car not to have both cars on the front two of the grid."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by alvarezh3, 26/05/2018 20:31

"I don't completely blame the young chap for his mistakes. At the start of his F1 career everyone inside and outside the team was super praising him for his bold moves. By doing this, the team, the press, and Liberty encouraged him to keep on doing it. The team by gaining championship points, the press in having a sensational story to print, and Liberty on having a wonder boy to promote their business.

Hope he has learned what the "laws of probabilities" mean.

One thing is to have above average and exceptional talent to do a certain task, and another is to have the capacity to do it maturely. It's clear he has not reached the later yet, wish he does so quickly before he hurts himself or others.

Had he been driving Keke's Williams back in the days, he would probably be limping around by now. Two almost identical accidents when your feet are located in front of the front axel centerline meant he would of have -at least- a pair of badly injured ankles."

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Horner: Max must stop making these errors

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