Max Verstappen is predicting another difficult race weekend for Red Bull in Canada.
As rivals Ferrari and McLaren inched closer to the formerly dominant world champions this year, the 2024 Red Bull car’s major weakness on bumpy tracks with significant kerbs - like Monaco - has become ever clearer.
"We just have to wait and see," triple world champion and 2024 championship leader Verstappen said ahead of this weekend’s event in Montreal.
"I think there is a new surface there too, so that could cause some extra surprises," said the Dutchman. "It will probably not be our best weekend there either, although it will probably be a little bit better than Monaco.
"Hopefully we will soon have more insight into where we are making mistakes."
During the Monaco GP weekend, as it became clear just how much Red Bull was struggling, Verstappen’s father Jos wondered aloud if the power struggle and scandal was now costing the team in terms of performance.
"Maybe they should start focusing a bit more on racing and mutual communication again, rather than on other things," he said.
As for Max, he is at least not as publicly concerned.
"I think we take everything very seriously," said the 26-year-old, "but sometimes things are not very easy to fix. But we are working hard on it.
"I think it’s more the pace of the car that we have to work on," Verstappen added. "We simply didn’t deserve to be up there in Monaco."
Even team boss Christian Horner, meanwhile, is scratching his head about what exactly is going wrong at Red Bull.
"Before we react, we first have to understand the problems," he is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport. "It’s strange that Toro Rosso (RB) doesn’t have these problems with our old suspension."