max verstappen pulls into the pits to retire his red bull rb22 mechanics pushing the car into the garage (1)Max Verstappen has revealed his Red Bull RB22 completely lost power when he dropped the clutch to launch at the start of the Monaco Grand Prix. Fortunately, he had enough momentum to move to the left side of the circuit to avoid what could’ve been a huge accident. Max Verstappen explains Monaco Grand Prix start failure Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust Verstappen’s Monaco Grand Prix was over before it even began as he failed to get off the line after his RB22 bogged down at the start. “Nice! It’s completely f***ed guys. What the f*** man!” he vented. “Already on the formation lap guys, the engine was broken.” Verstappen, who had lined up second on the grid, fell to the very back of the field before he managed to get his RB22 going. However, it didn’t last very long. Repeating that his engine was broken, he was told to bring the car back to the pits with his race ending even before the end of Lap 1 in the Red Bull garage. “Yeah, formation lap I’ve already felt a bit off, but then on the pre-start it was completely… normally you find your RPM target, but it was not going at all,” he told PlanetF1.com and other media in Monaco. “It’s just shooting up and down a lot, bit weird. “And then as soon as I dropped the clutch, that was it. The engine bogged down completely, and after that, the noise that I heard from the engine, once I got some power back out of Turn One, was very bad. “So I immediately just lifted it off and brought it home.” He added: “We had a really good weekend up until the race. Of course, everyone is very disappointed not to be on the podium.” Immediately realising that he had an issue at the start, Verstappen pulled to the side of the track to avoid what could’ve been a huge accident. Asked if he had been worried, he admitted: “Yeah, I mean, I had no power, right? “So I was steering left with the friction of the wheels at that speed. I was just praying that everyone would go right, but everyone luckily reacted very well.” F1 2026: The season’s winners and losers The Dutchman, though, says it’s not a case of Red Bull needing to turn things around, the team just needs to resolve the power unit issues in order to finish grands prix. “There’s not a turning around,” he insisted, “it’s just we need to make sure that, of course, we finish the races. But we need to understand what went wrong today. “If I would be leading the championship, that, of course, it is a very, very painful one. This is less painful, but it’s still really annoying and disappointing, we know, because everyone wants to finish. “I just hope that we understand quickly what it is and that we can fix it.” Additional reporting by Thomas Maher Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists. You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!
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