A frustrating 6th place for Verstappen at Monza: "We didn't plan for two stops"

In Monza, Max Verstappen signed his second worst result (excluding retirement) in the race, tied with the Monaco Grand Prix. The Dutchman, not satisfied with this result, is starting to get annoyed at the performance of his Red Bull become less and less competitive with other teams.

« It was a very bad race, Verstappen complained. We didn't have any pace, we had some bad stops, in terms of strategy it wasn't optimal. I also couldn't use the full power of my engine because we had a little problem as well. So all aspects of the race were pretty bad. »

The Red Bull driver's Grand Prix was marred by a long first pit stop of more than six seconds, which cost him a lot of time. He also had a scare in the second half of the race when he sent his car sideways at the exit of Lesmo 2. Although Verstappen managed to recover from the skid without stopping his rear wheels from biting into the gravel trap, this gap testifies to the growing fragility of the Red Bull team.

A lot of misunderstanding…

« We had not planned a two-stop strategy at all by putting on hard tires at the start of the race., explained the three-time reigning world champion. I was very surprised by their degradation. I trusted the team on this strategy. In the end, we would have still finished 6th^e. You always have to try to optimize everything to gain performance. We didn't do that today. The two-stop strategy was slower in my opinion. »

In Italy, Max Verstappen let a sixth victory in six consecutive races slip away. Beyond that, Red Bull was the third force on the grid this weekend at Monza behind the Ferrari and McLaren, neck and neck with the MercedesThe Austrian team now only has an 8-point lead in the Constructors' Championship...

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