26/05/2025
NEWS STORY
Never mind Lego and Mickey Mouse, Max Verstappen suggests another potential partner for F1 following Monaco debacle.
If nothing else, one had to admire the Dutchman's refusal to surrender, for having led the final 28 laps of the Monaco Grand Prix he was still holding out for that incident that might result in a VSC or Safety Car, thus allowing him to make his mandatory second stop and retain his lead.
However it didn't happen, and speaking at race end the four-time world champion admitted his frustration.
"You can't race here," he told reporters, "it doesn't matter what you do, one stop, ten stops... Even at the end, I was in the lead, my tyres were completely gone and you still can't pass.
"Nowadays, with an F1 car, you can just pass an F2 car around here," he added. "I get it, but I don't think it's worked, we were almost doing Mario Kart," he sighed.
"We'll have to install bits on the car and maybe you can throw bananas around! Slippery surface!" he laughed.
"We had nothing to lose," he insisted, "we had a big gap behind. When I heard it was like 45... 50 seconds or something... you can pit, of course, and you just drive by yourself. Or you just hope that something happens and you get lucky.
"But that didn't come the whole time, and my emotions were very neutral.
"I think, considering our pace the whole weekend, we did a good job," he concluded. "I think, as a team, of course, we were never happy with it before, but we also have to accept our limitations with the car."
However, like many, the Dutchman believes that such are the limitations of the track, the race is won (or lost) on Saturday.
"For me, that's Monaco for you," said. "Qualifying is super important. Normally, when nothing bad happens you don't really move forward and if you just do normal pit stops you just keep your position and it's exactly what happened today.
"I don't think we had the pace anyway to fight the guys ahead because every time I tried to stay with them my tyres were wearing a bit too much and graining a bit too much. P4 is definitely the maximum we could do."
Charles Leclerc, who harried race-winner Lando Norris all the way to the flag, also believes his race was lost on Saturday.
"At the end of the day we lost the race yesterday," said the Monegasque. "We should have done a better job. Lando did a better job this weekend and he deserves the win.
"On my side, I realised a childhood dream last year, not this year," he continued, "but considering everything I think it's a lot above our expectations coming here.
"I thought that being in the top ten would be a challenge," he admitted. "In the end we are second, very close to P1, so it's been a good weekend overall, but I wish I won.
"When I saw Max was playing the long game, I guess he was waiting for a red flag, and that helped me a little bit to put a bit more pressure on Lando, but it was not enough."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Monaco here.