Max Verstappen conceded that his early retirement from the Monaco Grand Prix was \u201ceven more painful\u201d given the potential for a good result, with the Dutchman admitting that Red Bull had been enjoying a \u201cnice weekend\u201d up until that point.<\/p>\n
After qualifying in P2 behind Mercedes<\/a>\u2019 Kimi Antonelli<\/a> in Saturday\u2019s Qualifying session, there was much anticipation over what Verstappen<\/a> \u2013 a two-time winner in Monte Carlo \u2013 might be able to do in Sunday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n However, the four-time World Champion\u2019s afternoon was over before it started after he initially failed to get off the line. As the rest of the field flashed by him, Verstappen subsequently managed to get moving but brought the car into the pits to retire at the end of his first lap.<\/p>\n Speaking in the media pen after his exit from the race, Verstappen was quizzed on how frustrating the situation was given his impressive Qualifying performance one day earlier.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter such a nice weekend for us, you\u2019d at least hope to be on the podium,\u201d he acknowledged. \u201cWe of course then retired basically straight away. It\u2019s painful for everyone. There\u2019s also no need to be super upset because I think everyone is already really disappointed about it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a shame for everyone. I really hoped that I could do something, or at least make it an exciting race and try to put the pressure on because I really felt good this whole weekend, and now to basically come away with zero points is probably even more painful.\u201d<\/p>\n Sharing further details on the cause of his retirement, Verstappen continued: \u201cI think already the formation lap wasn\u2019t particularly great, but then in the pre-start the engine was responding very weird.<\/p>\n \u201cNormally at one point you find your RPM target, but the engine basically was not doing that, and when I dropped the clutch it basically dropped dead.<\/p>\n \u201cI only had the battery at one point that helped me go forward, and after that the engine sounded really bad as soon as I had a bit of power back, and I\u2019m sure if I just would have gone flat-out within the lap I would have destroyed it completely so they told me to bring it back slowly.\u201d<\/p>\n