Max Verstappen has warned against drawing premature conclusions from Red Bull’s encouraging Monaco Grand Prix qualifying performance, insisting that this week’s Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix will provide a far more accurate measure of the team’s progress.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Dutchman secured a front-row start in Monte Carlo after qualifying second behind Kimi Antonelli, narrowly missing out on what would have been his first pole position of the F1 season.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
It marked Red Bull’s strongest qualifying displays of the campaign, and came as a surprise given the team’s well-documented struggles over bumps and kerbs, which are prevalent in the Principality.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Although the Milton Keynes-based squad’s fledgling power unit \u2014 built in partnership with Ford \u2014 has been declared the benchmark in F1 as part of the FIA’s ADUO programme, the RB22 has proven a troublesome chassis for the Laurent Mekies-led outfit to grapple with early in the year.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
However, the unique demands of the Circuit de Monaco appeared to mask some of the car’s shortcomings.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“You always have to run the car reasonably soft here in terms of set-up and suspension,” Verstappen explained to Dutch media, including RacingNews365, after qualifying. “In that area, it was better, but it is still our limitation when it comes to going faster.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Despite ending the grid-setting session just short of pole, Verstappen admitted he had not expected Red Bull to be in contention at the front.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“In that respect, I’m still a bit surprised that we were ultimately fighting for pole position,” he said. “Of course, we changed a few things after the third practice session, but it wasn’t that much.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
When asked whether the track conditions had perhaps played into Red Bull’s hands, the four-time F1 drivers’ champion remained unconvinced, adding: “Normally, that wouldn’t be the case.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tThe biggest test is yet to come<\/p>\n
While Monaco offered reasons for optimism, Verstappen was keen to place the result in context. The narrow street circuit is unlike any other venue on the calendar, and the 28-year-old believes the true picture will emerge this weekend in Barcelona.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“This is positive, but next week it’s a completely different circuit,” he said. “Then it’s a different world again.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The RB22 has shown flashes of improvement in recent races, particularly at circuits dominated by lower-speed corners. Still, Verstappen believes it remains too early to declare that Red Bull has fully solved its problems.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“That has already been the case recently, but we’ve also raced at circuits with mainly slow corners,” he pointed out. “We just have to wait and see.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“When Barcelona comes around, that’s the real test because you have high-speed corners again. We shouldn’t start celebrating too soon.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Qualifying proved to be the high point of Verstappen’s weekend in Monaco, with his car agonisingly failing to get off the line with a power unit issue.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
After the Dutchman managed to get his Red Bull to limp home to the pits for a first lap retirement, he reiterated his stance on the upcoming round in Barcelona.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“Completely different tracks,” he told Sky Sports F1. “It will be a good test to see if we actually really made a proper step forward or not, because that’s all about high speed and aerodynamic performance. So it will be an interesting weekend.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has warned against drawing premature conclusions from Red Bull’s encouraging Monaco Grand Prix qualifying performance, insisting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3518,3521,3519,3522,3520,3517,3515,3513,3516,3514,111,139,69,3512,213],"class_list":["post-468392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}