Red Bull identifies cause of Max Verstappen’s F1 Monaco GP retirement
Red Bull has found the reason for Max Verstappen's retirement at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Laurent Mekies says Red Bull has identified the cause of Max Verstappen’s retirement at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Verstappen was hoping to challenge Andrea Kimi Antonelli for the win in Sunday’s race around the legendary streets of Monte Carlo after securing a brilliant front row of the grid start with second place in qualifying.
But the four-time world champion’s race was immediately ruined when his Red Bull bogged down off at the start and was swallowed up by the field. Verstappen swerved out of the way to avoid being collected and limped back to the garage to retire at the end of the opening lap.
Red Bull did not disclose full details but team principal Mekies revealed it was already planned that Verstappen’s power unit would be replaced ahead of the next race in Barcelona.
“We have identified what the issue is”, Mekies told media including Crash.net after Sunday’s race. “It developed on the formation lap and it gave him or us no chance. So that's what it is.
“As you may be aware, it was also the very first PU of Max this season, which was planned to be changed after Monaco.
“It's not what we wanted. Obviously, we can only apologise to Max because the job he had done with the team to get to that level of pace around Monaco was outstanding.
“Probably early days to discuss what the fix is, but we think we have identified what the issue is.”
Explaining what happened at the start, Verstappen told Sky Sports F1: "Already the formation lap was not going very well and then after that the pre-start was terrible.
“There was just no consistency and then the engine just dropped dead. I only got a little bit of power back after the first corner and then the engine sounded really awful. I could not go full throttle, so we brought it back and that was it.”
Despite suffering his second DNF of the 2026 season, Verstappen insisted he was not too downbeat.
“If I would be leading the championship, then of course it's a very, very painful one. Like this, it’s less painful, but it's still really annoying and disappointing for everyone”, he said.
“We know of course that everyone wants to finish every single race, but yeah, I just hope that we understand quickly what it is and that we can fix it for the future.”
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