The Monaco Grand Prix delivered a rollercoaster of emotions, and Red Bull is perhaps the team that best encapsulates how a Sunday in the Principality can completely flip on its head from lights out to the checkered flag. Max Verstappen saw his front-row grid slot vanish into thin air due to an engine issue that put him in a potentially highly dangerous situation at the start. Meanwhile, Isack Hadjar completed a heroic drive to claim a podium finish he never expected to even reach, keeping fans on the edge of their seats until well after the race due to a post-race stewards’ investigation.
Verstappen’s ordeal: “The engine died suddenly, at Turn 1 I was praying they would avoid me”
Sunday in Monte Carlo was over before it even began for Max Verstappen, betrayed by a structural failure of his power unit that sidelined him in the very early stages of the event. The four-time world champion described a sequence of anomalies that began as early as the formation lap, culminating in a potentially hazardous scenario immediately after the lights went out.
“Even the formation lap felt a bit strange,” the Dutch driver explained after stepping out of the cockpit. “After that, the pre-launch phase was absolutely terrible. As soon as I released the clutch, that was it: the engine died completely. After the first corner, I recovered just a tiny bit of power, but the noise coming from the power unit was really bad. I couldn’t go flat out, so we brought the car back to the pits and the curtains came down.”
Verstappen then revealed the dramatic moments he experienced in the heart of the pack right after the start: “I had no power, so I was veering off to the left using pure momentum, just praying that everyone else would sweep past to the right. Fortunately, everyone reacted brilliantly and avoided me. Up until the race, we had enjoyed an excellent weekend, and obviously, we are all very disappointed to lose a guaranteed podium. Now we need to ensure we finish races and understand exactly what went wrong today.”
Hadjar’s hard-fought joy: A podium navigating technical woes and a stewards’ scare
While Sunday turned into a nightmare for the team’s leading driver, the Monegasque weekend brought immense joy to Isack Hadjar, who managed to clinch his first podium as a Red Bull driver. It was a milestone achieved after a stoic race, locked in permanently only after the post-race stewards’ verdict.
The young Frenchman detailed the countless adversities of his weekend, recalling his heavy crash on Friday: “For many reasons, this is an incredibly satisfying result, especially because I started the weekend in the worst possible way. Monaco is a track where you need to build confidence lap by lap by staying out there, and I felt like I had almost none on Friday. In FP2, I lost confidence completely because I had zero feeling with the car. In FP3, we took a step forward, I pushed, and we became competitive again, giving ourselves the opportunity that paid off today. I would have liked an easier race, but I had to manage so many problems on the car that at one point I thought we would finish outside the points.”
Going into detail regarding his mechanical struggles, Hadjar revealed: “The drivability issues started very early on, I’d say around lap 12, and the car became almost undrivable. In Monaco, you don’t have the luxury of not using first or second gear, and that was exactly where the flaw was. At certain points, I also felt a drop in power, even during the final restart. We still need to fully analyze what happened, but I kept pushing and now I’m happy to be here on the podium.”
The celebrations for the Milton Keynes squad were very nearly ruined by a post-race investigation regarding an alleged infringement during the red flag period. According to the Technical Delegate’s report, Red Bull mechanics were working on car number 6, performing operations not permitted by the sporting regulations. However, after hearing from the driver and a team representative, and analyzing the available evidence, the stewards’ official statement cleared up the situation: «When questioned about the work in progress, the mechanics stopped the operations and returned the car to its previous state without replacing any components.» A ruling of “no further action” was thus decreed, confirming the Frenchman’s classification and safely securing Hadjar’s eventful weekend.
In summary, Red Bull experienced contrasting fortunes at the Monaco Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen suffering a terrifying engine failure at the start while Isack Hadjar battled through severe technical issues and a post-race FIA investigation to claim his first career podium.
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