Max Verstappen and Red Bull pulled off an incredible turnaround mid-weekend at the 2026 F1 Monaco GP, after struggling to fifth place in FP3 and nearly a second off Kimi Antonelli’s benchmark, to securing a front row start and just narrowly missing out by 43 thousandths of a second on a first pole position of the season for the four-time world champion that sits seventh in the championship currently.
Why Verstappen was “quite a bit” surprised to be in the fight for pole at the 2026 F1 Monaco GP qualifying
Verstappen admitted he was “quite a bit” surprised to be in the fight for pole position around the tight streets of the Monte Carlo, after such a relatively uncompetitive FP3 showing earlier on at the 2026 Monaco GP weekend.
“Quite a bit [surprised] after this morning,” he said. “We were like nine tenths off. I was confident that we would make some improvements heading into qualifying, but yeah, not to fight for pole. Honestly, when I jumped into the car, I was like, ‘okay, let’s try and recover a bit, maybe top five’. That was the target.
“But I’d say from quite early on in qualifying, the car felt a bit better. So even if you would have told me after yesterday, where we looked quite okay to be starting on the front row, I would have immediately taken it.
“So for us it’s been a very good turnaround, yes.
“I was quite happy [on Friday], [then] this morning, really not happy, and now I’m fairly happy again.
“So that’s of course good, [to be there] when it matters, you know. So this was, of course, the most important session of the weekend.”
Verstappen: Red Bull still has “little problems” holding it back in 2026 F1 Monaco GP weekend
After losing out on such a tiny margin to pole position, it’s natural to think that Verstappen could have possibly found that time elsewhere in the lap, but the Dutchman was adamant that despite Red Bull’s impressive turnaround in form heading into the all-important qualifying for the Monaco GP, they still had “little problems” with the ride of the 2026 RB22 and navigating the bumpy streets of the principality in the middle sector of the lap:
“I never do that, to be honest [looking at the gap to first]. I mean, yeah, it’s close. Sometimes you are just ahead, sometimes you’re just behind, you know, that’s life.
“But for me, I was happy with my lap. So when I crossed the line, I was like, ‘okay, if someone beats that, fair enough’. That’s part of it. We just came up short, but like I explained, we had a very difficult FP3, so to be in that fight in qualy [was a] great effort from the team.
“We still have our little problems, and especially I think in the middle sector, that’s where we lose the most, where you have a few curbs that you have to take, and there are a few bumps or ride stuff in the track that [are] just a little bit more complicated at the moment for our car.
“But I still think that overall we had a very good qualifying. I mean, we were up there, we were fighting for pole.”
Start will be “critical” for the outcome of the race
With its notoriously tight streets, Monaco’s race is often decided in two key moments: Saturday’s qualifying session and the race start on Sunday.
With part one complete, Verstappen now looks forward to getting a good start on Sunday’s Monaco GP, as he reminisced that it hasn’t quite been a strong point for Red Bull in F1 2026, as he lost places in most of the starts so far this season and looks to rectify that at perhaps the most important start of the season:
“Of course, tomorrow is still a start, which this year seems a little bit more critical to get right compared to other years where it was not such a big deal,” he noted. “So that’s still something that we have to look at, but overall for us this has been a very positive weekend.”
