Yahoo Sports So What Can Actually Slow Max Verstappen?
Yesterday, Max Verstappen needed a wall-to-wall-perfect third sector to take pole for the Monaco Grand Prix. It suggested that Red Bull's advantages, the ones that have made Verstappen so dominant all season, were not as impactful at the short, narrow Monaco street circuit, and gave Alpine, Ferrari, and Aston Martin hope that Verstappen could be fallible today. That was certainly not the case.
Verstappen ran away with today's Monaco Grand Prix, starting by pulling a small gap from Fernando Alonso in the early laps. The margin had grown to ten seconds around lap 50, but late-arriving rain threw a wrench in the works that could have potentially put the Red Bull lead driver in trouble. The new variable was chaos for drivers behind the leader, but it actually benefitted Verstappen when Alonso's Aston Martin team made the mistake of taking another set of slicks just a few laps before switching to wet tires.
In the end, Verstappen won by nearly 30 seconds in what was supposed to be the most contested race of the year to date for Red Bull. Although he needed a starring performance to take the pole that is so important at a track where passing is difficult, the drive to win looked relatively easy. Verstappen and Red Bull have reached a point of fastest-car, fastest-driver harmony that has typically rendered the entire rest of a season moot. After putting up a fight in the early rounds, teammate Sergio Perez no longer seems to be a major threat to Verstappen even in a race where Perez is leading the field from pole and Verstappen has to start back in ninth.
If something does not change in the next month, a Verstappen championship is not just a sure thing but one that will be wrapped up in September. Mercedes and Ferrari are running out of time to step up, and, with the lead Red Bull has, that step would need to be not just to equal footing with the team but a level above it. That is good news for Max Verstappen, Adrian Newey, and everyone at Red Bull. It is bad news for just about everyone else.
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