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Verstappen's confidence unaffected by Monaco

Max Verstappen says his confidence has not been affected despite crashing in both qualifying and the race at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Having won on his debut for Red Bull in Barcelona, Verstappen endured a much more difficult weekend in Monaco as he crashed in Q1 and had to start from the pit lane. With team-mate Daniel Ricciardo on pole, Verstappen climbed back through the field to be running in the top ten but then crashed out of the race at Massenet.

Asked if his confidence had taken a hit after the challenging weekend, Verstappen replied: "No absolutely not.

"I don’t really see Canada as a street circuit so I’m ready to go again. It wouldn’t be good if it lets you down, it’s a week ago so you get over it.

"I would say I’m disappointed of course but you learn from those weekends, even more than what I learned from Barcelona. You need that sometimes to become better.

"[I learned] to stay out of the walls in Monaco. The thing is if you make a mistake in qualifying, you have to start last and try and make up positions which is not easy in Monaco. We came back to ninth and then you know, got a little too motivated to go even further and maybe that caught me out."

With both Red Bull drivers set to use the upgraded Renault power unit in Canada, Verstappen expects to be closer to Mercedes than the team was on pace in Barcelona.

"At the moment I think it’s a bit too early to say [if Red Bull can challenge], but definitely you could see Monaco we were a little bit ahead, but it’s a different track than here. Here you have longer straights and I think we will be closer but not in front."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.