Max realistic after Monaco GP opening day: 'We need to find more speed'
Published on 21 May 2021 by Stefan Meens
Max Verstappen caught up with Ziggo Sport’s Olaf Mol to discuss the first two practice sessions of the Monaco Grand Prix.
Were you planning on starting the opening practice session with a long run? “Yes, we don’t have an unlimited supply of soft tyres but a specific tyre allocation, so we started on the hard tyres. At that the point, the track isn’t optimal anyway so you just want to get the miles in, which worked well for us.”
Monaco is notorious for traffic. “Yes, that’s just the way the track is, it’s always difficult. Some drivers are better at managing traffic, but it is what it is.”
You want to avoid coming up behind Mazepin, as he is three seconds slower. Is that something you look at? “Q1 is the big problem. Q2 a bit less. Thankfully in Q3, when it really matters, there aren’t any traffic issues.”
It is a track with a lot of corners. Does that make it physically challenging? “What does challenging mean? If it is, you’re not fit enough. You just have to be really focussed. You need to always be alert because a mistake is easily made. In the race you always drive a bit slower because nobody can overtake you. It really is the concentration that makes it a bit harder than other circuits. Physically it’s not that bad.”
You struggled to get the laptime out of the car today? “It wasn’t good enough today. We didn’t have the right balance. We were close, but we have to be at the front. So we have work to do. The car isn’t doing what I want it to do. You want the car to turn in quickly, especially in the slow corners where you can win a lot of time. That’s the main problem for us.”
You are good enough to get pole position. Are you and the car good enough for pole on Saturday? “We’ll see, not at the moment. We’re clearly behind, as you can tell from the sector times. We really have to find something in the car to be ahead of Mercedes.”
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