Max Verstappen said he had two potentially dangerous near-misses with rivals during practice in Monaco today.
The Red Bull driver sarcastically applauded Franco Colapinto after being held up by the Alpine driver on one of his laps during second practice.
“Monaco is always quite tricky with traffic, but I think two times today it was quite dangerous, I would say, in FP1 and then one time in FP2,” said Verstappen after practice. “Which is not ideal.
“I know it’s practice, but it could have been quite a big crash if you don’t back out of it quickly, if you didn’t read the situation, but luckily everything went well.”
The Red Bull driver was one of several who experienced problems with traffic. Charles Leclerc collided with Lance Stroll when the Aston Martin driver pulled onto the racing line in front of him during first practice. Lewis Hamilton had two dramatic moments when he encountered rivals during the same session, including one at high-speed as he approached Massenet.
Verstappen ended practice in 10th place, seven-tenths of a second slower than Leclerc and Oscar Piastri. He said his car felt better in the first session before they made changes to its set-up.
“It was quite positive but then we made some changes for FP2 to see how far basically we could push the balance and I think we just overdid it a little bit,” he said. “So I just couldn’t really attack the corners anymore how I would like and then you’re just like shedding a lot of pace and the lap time was basically not coming out of it.
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“I don’t expect us to be the quickest, but we want to be a lot closer than what we were in FP2. I’m also quite confident that we can be a lot closer.”
However he was impressed by Ferrari’s pace on day one of practice. “Ferrari again looks very, very fast,” he said. “The McLarens were quite close behind but if you see over the whole season the pace, I think Ferrari again took a big step forward here.”
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