Max Verstappen Not ‘Thinking’ About F1 Title After Disappointing Monaco GP

Max Verstappen laments Red Bull's performance struggles against rivals as he shifts his focus away from winning the drivers' title.

Max Verstappen Not ‘Thinking’ About F1 Title After Disappointing Monaco GP

Max Verstappen (via Red Bull)

Max Verstappen’s woes in the 2025 season continue as he fails to amass any notable results in the Monaco GP. The Dutchman remained on the back foot of the entire race and couldn’t fight for a podium finish due to the restrictive nature of the Monte Carlo Circuit. To make matters worse, Red Bull’s challenger did not perform up to the mark as the reigning world champion now shifts his focus away from the drivers’ title.

Max Verstappen is unable to replicate his championship-winning pace of the previous seasons as he occupies the third spot in the standings. Verstappen lost the title lead early on and is trailing the championship leader, Oscar Piastri, by over 25 points. As such, the Dutchman might focus more on improving Red Bull’s current tumultuous state and not his personal results.

After losing the drivers’ lead early on this year, Verstappen now insists that he doesn’t think about the championship much. Rather, the 27-year-old aims to improve results with every passing race. Additionally, the Dutchman accepted that the team is bound to suffer from a rollercoaster of results and go from hero to zero over any given race weekend, as depicted in Monaco as well.

Honestly I don’t really think about the championship. I just want to go race by race. Of course, some tracks you might be a bit more competitive, and some you will struggle a bit more and I think it was clear that again here in Monaco we struggled.

Max Verstappen told media including RacingNews365

Red Bull brought in multiple upgrades throughout the year in hopes of improving results. However, as depicted by the Monaco GP pace, the team’s pace was subpar at best. Despite the multiple upgrades, Max Verstappen reckons that the results did not improve as the car was even slower than last year. Hence, Verstappen accepts that the team hasn’t improved as much as they hoped to.

I don’t think [the car improved]. We were actually slower than last year in qualifying. I don’t think we have improved what we wanted to improve around here.

Max Verstappen added

Max Verstappen laments ‘struggles’ of new generation cars

Red Bull dominated a majority of the ground effect era since the 2022 season. Despite winning over 22 out of 23 races in the 2023 season, the team has seemed to fall in performance desperately since then. This sudden downfall was caused due to the unpredictable behavior of the challengers in this generation, as multiple other teams suffered from a similar fate. As such, Max Verstappen blames the ground-effect era regulations for Milton Keynes’ trying times in recent years.

Yuki Tsunoda and Max Verstappen (via Red Bull)
Yuki Tsunoda and Max Verstappen (via Red Bull)

Max Verstappen, despite dominating the 2023 season and shattering multiple world records, acknowledged that Red Bull struggled to perform well throughout the ground-effect era. While the 2023 season was great for the team, they have failed to replicate even half of the performance since then. On top of that, the setup especially did not work for the 2025 Monaco GP, as the team failed to emerge victorious this time around.

Honestly every year we have struggled here with this new generation of cars, only in ‘23 we had a massive pace advantage and we still win the race. I mean, we try really every single year, but yes, for whatever reason, here it never seems to work.

Max Verstappen noted

The 2025 season is still just eight races in, as a majority of the year is still pending. While McLaren has clearly remained the team to beat, Max Verstappen is managing to come close to the rivals at the forefront. Now, time will tell if Red Bull manages to cover the performance gap and regain their position to contend for both titles.

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