Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Verstappen explains his early DNF
Formula 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing F1 Monaco Summaries 2026 F1 season
After an issue on the start, Max Verstappen’s race in Monaco came to an early end. He qualified second behind Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli but failed to get off the line at the race start. He eventually got the car moving but after one lap he retired the car.
After Verstappen’s exit from the race, he was asked about details of his retirement, quoted by the official Formula 1 website: “I think already the formation lap wasn’t particularly great, but then in the pre-start the engine was responding very weird.”
“Normally 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,” he continued.
According to his words, he only had a battery at one point to help him go forward and after that the engine sounded really bad as soon as he had a bit of a power back. The Dutch driver also added that if he had gone flat out within one lap he would have destroyed the car completely so the team told him to bring it back slowly.
The four time World Champion was also asked how much frustrating it is given a successful weekend so far for Red Bull: “After such a nice weekend for us, you’d at least hope to be on the podium. We of course then retired basically straight away. It’s painful for everyone. There’s also no need to be super upset because I think everyone is already really disappointed about it.”
“It’s 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,” he admitted.
