Max Verstappen believes Lewis Hamilton will receive a grid penalty for impeding him in qualifying for Formula 1’s Monaco Grand Prix.
In Q1 Verstappen bombed up the hill towards Massenet, when he was blocked by Hamilton in his Ferrari and had to back out of his lap through one of the circuit’s many blind corners.
Hamilton was informed by his race engineer that Verstappen was approaching, but was then mistakenly told the Red Bull driver was slowing down, which prompted Hamilton to move towards the middle of the track again.
Both drivers and their team representatives were summoned by the FIA race stewards straight after qualifying, with Verstappen expecting the seven-time world champion to face a grid drop. As Hamilton qualified one spot ahead of Verstappen in fifth, that would move the Dutchman up the starting order.
“Well, if you look at the history of things, yes,” Verstappen replied, when asked if he was expecting a penalty for his rival. “It’s more a team’s fault, but unfortunately in qualifying of course they normally are quite strict on these things.”
Verstappen said he had spoken to Hamilton and stressed the 40-year-old wasn’t to blame for their near-miss.
“You see the car blocking you and when you’re there at high speed it’s… not nice, let’s say,” he said. “But then I saw immediately, the team told him that I was driving slowly, while I was clearly driving fast, so it’s not Lewis’ fault.
“I quickly chatted to Lewis about it already. That’s the team’s mistake.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
Red Bull “not in the fight” on Monaco’s bumps and kerbs
Verstappen suffered a difficult qualifying session by his lofty standards, qualifying seven tenths away from polesitter Lando Norris in the McLaren.
While the team appeared to have solved some of the Red Bull RB21’s understeer issues in Friday practice, the four-time world champion rued a general lack of grip on the bumpy street circuit, which has historically been a Red Bull weakness.
“Mainly the middle sector, all the low-speed mechanical grip corners, we just didn’t have it,” he explained. “I couldn’t find more lap time compared to practice, really. And every time I had to ride a kerb or drop a wheel in a cambered corner it just didn’t grip up and that has been our issue.
“As soon as we went out in qualifying and I saw the lap time progression, I knew that we were not in that fight.
“Our car is not very good at low speed anyway. In qualifying it has always been very close between a lot of cars, and if you are lacking a bit of feeling and balance in those low-speed corners then it’s not happening.”
