Martin Brundle claims he heard something ‘painful’ from Red Bull star Max Verstappen as Ferrari ace Charles Leclerc won the 2024 Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday.
It was a weekend largely to forget for Red Bull as Verstappen laboured to secure only a sixth-place finish. Sergio Perez even failed to complete a single sector after his collision with Kevin Magnussen of Haas. The 34-year-old put himself in the danger zone after qualifying in P16.
Verstappen was seldom happy with Red Bull throughout the Monaco GP weekend, too. The 26-year-old regularly bemoaned the handling of his RB20 as it struggled to ride the kerbs of the Circuit de Monte Carlo. But Perez and Magnussen’s huge crash changed the entire race.
Martin Brundle found Max Verstappen’s Monaco GP pillow talk ‘painful’
Perez squeezed Magnussen into the barrier on the run through Beau Rivage as the Haas ace sought an ambitious overtake. The 31-year-old got his front-left tyre ahead of the Mexican’s rear-right thanks to his superior exit from T1. But Perez left Magnussen with nowhere to go.
The red flag period that followed changed the entire race as the field made their mandatory tyre change. Leclerc thus lowered his pace for the Ferrari pilot to win the Monaco GP ahead of Oscar Piastri of McLaren. The race was more about preserving their tyres than the racing.
READ MORE: Seven unforgettable Monaco GP moments including Senna vs Mansell and Schumacher’s controversy
Stuck behind Mercedes star George Russell, Verstappen even told his engineer on Red Bull’s team radio in the Monaco GP: “This is really boring. [I] should have brought my pillow.” But Brundle found Verstappen’s words to Gianpiero Lambiase ‘painful’, despite sharing his view.
“Lewis Hamilton said it was one of the worst races he’s driven in,” Brundle told Sky Sports. “And Max Verstappen’s pillow talk was painful when he said he wished he had one for a sleep during the race.
“Now, the great irony here is that those two drivers didn’t care one bit while we all had to observe them relentlessly winning races and championships by a country mile. But they were right, it was lacklustre, to say the least.”
F1 and the FIA’s red flag rules triggered Charles Leclerc and George Russell’s slow pace
The ‘lacklustre’ Monaco GP that bored Verstappen and Brundle on Sunday was a result of F1 and the FIA’s rules allowing teams to make changes to their cars under red flag conditions. If drivers had to take the restart on their initial starting tyres, the race might have been livelier.
Instead, Leclerc kept his pace as slow as possible to prevent Lando Norris from having a lead large enough to Russell in P5 for McLaren to pit the 24-year-old and put pressure on Ferrari and Carlos Sainz in P3. Russell was also nursing his tyres to keep enough life in his mediums.
Without the red flag period necessitated to repair the barriers damaged by Magnussen and Perez’s crash, Leclerc and Russell would not have been nursing their tyres to such an extent. But given the free pit stops, Leclerc and Russell did what they needed to avoid another stop.
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