Has Verstappen been driving around the problems? 'You have to ask Max that'

The Austrian racing team are struggling with balance problems, which are difficult to solve. Team boss Christian Horner recently indicated that the current problems date back to last season, but Paul Monoghan is reluctant to say whether Max Verstappen, for his part, has had to drive around problems all year.

Speaking to the press in Baku, including GPblog, Monaghan was asked whether it is correct to say that Verstappen had always managed to driver around the problems up until six race weekends ago, but now that is no longer possible because the competition has improved.

"It's just a question you have to ask Max really to have his view of it," Monaghan responded. "I can turn around and say as a team, if we can put together a good enough package that the drivers can form the best of their abilities and we win the race, we've arguably done the best job of everybody in the pit lane. Now whether that means we've relied upon Max or Checo to carry us home…it’s a difficult question to answer in relative terms. It's all about putting together the package that Max can drive and feels confident in."

The 56-year-old chief engineer continued, "Look at the first few races of the season. You're not going to get caught, you're not going to get caught...okay careful. And here we are in a bit of a fight. So between us, whether it's between Max and Checo and the whole team, not just what you see here. The question is, can we put together a car that can defend the titles," concluded Monaghan.

This article has been created in collaboration with Corwin Kunst