For weeks, Max Verstappen has been the sport's chief pessimist about his own car. Ahead of Monaco he warned the Red Bull was "so poor over the curbs and over the bumps" — the very weaknesses that get exposed fastest between the barriers of Monte Carlo. Then Friday happened, and the script changed.
Ferrari set the pace, Lewis Hamilton leading Charles Leclerc in a one-two across FP1 and FP2. Behind them, though, came the headline of the day: Verstappen in third, only about a tenth and a half adrift in FP2 and, to several watching, the standout on track.
"Apart from the pace, I also feel more confident than I expected to be," Verstappen told reporters in Monaco, in comments carried by Autosport. Even Mercedes were caught out; paddock sources at the team conceded they "didn't expect Red Bull to be this good, at least not on the Friday."
Peter Windsor singled out the Dutchman as the best thing about the day. "It's brilliant to watch Max again through that Rascasse section, where he was so quick," he said. The detail that mattered more, in Windsor's view, was the fuel-run pace: after a long stint with fuel aboard, "Max on fuel looked to be right where Mercedes are — first time we've been able to say that this year."
Whether any of that becomes a result on Sunday divides opinion.
Formula Reports went furthest, branding Verstappen "a dark horse for the victory this weekend" on the back of his Canadian podium and Monaco's unforgiving math: lead into Turn 1 and you are almost impossible to pass. "If he gets off the line well and he leads into Turn 1, do you think anybody's getting past him? I don't," the channel said.
The P1 podcast, live from Monaco, pumped the brakes. "I don't think Max Verstappen's getting pole position," one host said, before admitting the surprise was real: "I'm surprised that Red Bull are this good around here." Their expectation settled on third — clear of the wounded McLarens, in among the Mercedes, but not on terms with Ferrari.
It was not a clean sweep for Red Bull. Isack Hadjar crashed at the swimming pool in FP1 with a strange loss of rear grip, rebuilt his confidence in FP2 and climbed to sixth. "With our position, I think we can fight the Mercedes guys," he said, drawing a line under any top-three hopes.
The takeaway for Verstappen is the distance travelled in a single day — from bracing for a miserable weekend to looking like the only man who might prise the Ferraris apart. Monaco being Monaco, it now hinges on one clean lap in qualifying.
