Off the pace in Friday’s second practice in Monaco, Helmut Marko says Red Bull need to find a “compromise” as they went too far with the setup of the RB21.

Although Max Verstappen was second quickest in Friday’s opening practice on the streets of Monte Carlo, he was down in 10th place at the end of the day.

Red Bull were ‘shedding lap time’ in Monaco

The four-time World Champion’s fastest lap time was over seven-tenths slower than Charles Leclerc’s pace-setting 1:11.355.

Declaring he “couldn’t attack the corners as much” as he wanted to, Verstappen lamented Red Bull were “shedding a lot of pace and lap time.”

Marko says that’s because they went too far with the RB21’s setup in FP2, which created a problem with understeer.

“The setup was probably wrong,” the Red Bull motorsport advisor told Sky Deutschland. “Max had quite a lot of understeer. We have to find a compromise again where we get rid of the understeer, but don’t go too far.”

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“We changed several things, but it didn’t bring the results we expected,” he added to Motorsport.com. “We got understeer.

“And understeer, this circuit and Verstappen,” he continued with a laugh, “those things don’t go together. So I hope we can put it right.

“The positive was that Max’s last lap in his long run was even the fastest lap.

“But in general terms, Ferrari looks very strong and I would say they are the favourites.

“Firstly, Leclerc is always fast here. And secondly, this circuit doesn’t matter much to them compared to the ride height they normally use. They always choose more or less the same ride height and that is of course an advantage here. They have quite a soft set-up.”

But while he has all but put Ferrari on pole position, Marko is hoping Red Bull can at least qualify ahead of the McLaren team-mates.

“Everything is about qualifying here and with those two pit stops, the race will be a kind of lottery,” he said. “But I believe we can be in front of the McLarens and that’s what we have to do.

“There is still plenty of room for improvement, there are other ways we can correct this.”

Asked why he was so confident, he replied: “It’s because we know how much time we are losing now with understeer. We went the wrong way this Friday and Friday is usually not our best day!”

Marko isn’t the only observer backing Charles Leclerc to put his SF-25 on pole position, former F1 driver Nick Heidfeld saying the Ferrari, especially in the hands of the local lad, looked good around the Monte Carlo circuit on Friday.

“Based on today’s impressions, it clearly looks like Ferrari and especially Leclerc are in front. Visually from my impressions of the track with the naked eye and from the lap times – it will be difficult to compete with them,” said the Sky Deutschland pundit.

Leclerc won last year’s Monaco Grand Prix from pole position with Ralf Schumacher saying he could do it “again” this year.

“Ferrari has a good chance here again,” said the German, “because mechanical grip and cars that roll and swallow the kerbs actually have a big advantage.”

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