Never mind Lego and Mickey Mouse, Max Verstappen suggests another potential partner for F1 following Monaco debacle.

If nothing else, one had to admire the Dutchman's refusal to surrender, for having led the final 28 laps of the Monaco Grand Prix he was still holding out for that incident that might result in a VSC or Safety Car, thus allowing him to make his mandatory second stop and retain his lead.

However it didn't happen, and speaking at race end the four-time world champion admitted his frustration.

"You can't race here," he told reporters, "it doesn't matter what you do, one stop, ten stops... Even at the end, I was in the lead, my tyres were completely gone and you still can't pass.

"Nowadays, with an F1 car, you can just pass an F2 car around here," he added. "I get it, but I don't think it's worked, we were almost doing Mario Kart," he sighed.

"We'll have to install bits on the car and maybe you can throw bananas around! Slippery surface!" he laughed.

"We had nothing to lose," he insisted, "we had a big gap behind. When I heard it was like 45... 50 seconds or something... you can pit, of course, and you just drive by yourself. Or you just hope that something happens and you get lucky.

"But that didn't come the whole time, and my emotions were very neutral.

"I think, considering our pace the whole weekend, we did a good job," he concluded. "I think, as a team, of course, we were never happy with it before, but we also have to accept our limitations with the car."

However, like many, the Dutchman believes that such are the limitations of the track, the race is won (or lost) on Saturday.

"For me, that's Monaco for you," said. "Qualifying is super important. Normally, when nothing bad happens you don't really move forward and if you just do normal pit stops you just keep your position and it's exactly what happened today.

"I don't think we had the pace anyway to fight the guys ahead because every time I tried to stay with them my tyres were wearing a bit too much and graining a bit too much. P4 is definitely the maximum we could do."

Charles Leclerc, who harried race-winner Lando Norris all the way to the flag, also believes his race was lost on Saturday.

"At the end of the day we lost the race yesterday," said the Monegasque. "We should have done a better job. Lando did a better job this weekend and he deserves the win.

"On my side, I realised a childhood dream last year, not this year," he continued, "but considering everything I think it's a lot above our expectations coming here.

"I thought that being in the top ten would be a challenge," he admitted. "In the end we are second, very close to P1, so it's been a good weekend overall, but I wish I won.

"When I saw Max was playing the long game, I guess he was waiting for a red flag, and that helped me a little bit to put a bit more pressure on Lando, but it was not enough."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Monaco here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Pavlo, 27/05/2025 7:27

"I still like Monaco and would like it to stay. It was nevertheless interesting to watch, and scenery is spectacular.
If it's decided by qualifying, what's wrong with it? One still needs to be the fastest, and in this case show excellent driving skills, even if it's on Saturday.
I don't get where "Mario Cart" comparison comes from - quite on contrary, Mario always has loads of easy overtakes.

The real "problem" of Monaco is actually the same as of all other tracks: no driver or a team would willingly build the car to make interesting race. Their intention is to build the car that can win in the most boring way. If you let them decide, you will see 0 overtakes on every track. It's a job of FIA to make rules that make that challenging, and therefore make race interesting."

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2. Posted by Celtic Tiger, 27/05/2025 0:44

"Max bringing the facts, its a shame that drivers are so low on the totem that FOM can't hear them over the hum of the money counter machines and MBS is too enamored with himself to care about any idea that wasn't his."

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3. Posted by Superbird70, 26/05/2025 16:16

"It's time to rethink the series. Much like CART and the IRL split way back when, we may need to look to a predominantly road course series and a street course series. Monaco is iconic, and maybe it is time to put it on a shelf so that it's history can be admired. Even the the F2 race was demolition derby.

Unless the F1 cars shrink by about 15% in mass and footprint I fear all the street courses will turn into what we saw at Monaco this year."

Verstappen likens Monaco race to Mario Kart

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