Credits: Imago

Max Verstappen predicted a woeful outing for Red Bull in Monaco and it turned out to be true. Sergio Perez, who started P16, crashed out on the first lap and Verstappen couldn’t make any inroads, finishing sixth. This shook the team’s confidence and the Dutchman remains pessimistic about the immediate future, including the Canadian GP.

The RB20 has limitations on its suspension that make the car lose out on grip through vertical oscillations. As a result, Verstappen and Perez struggled on the kerbs and bumps in Monaco. With the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve also being a similarly positioned street circuit, Verstappen’s apprehensions remain valid.

The three-time World Champion said,

“It [Canadian GP] probably won’t be easy with the kerbing

Ever since the ground-effect regulations came into effect in 2022, Red Bull hasn’t been the best in low-speed corners. But 2024 is the first time their rivals have gotten close enough to expose this weakness. In Monaco, both the Ferraris and the McLarens were able to dominate the Dutchman, and there was nothing the latter could do.

Talking about the upcoming Canadian GP, Red Bull doesn’t have a good track record in Montreal. They have 118 Grand Prix wins in F1 and only four of them have come in Canada. The two times they have won (both thanks to Verstappen), the gap to the second-placed finisher has been less than ten seconds.

If not Max Verstappen, then who is the favorite to win the 2024 Canadian GP?

The last three races have set the cat amongst the pigeons in terms of the championship fight. Miami was the first time Red Bull’s dominance visibly faltered, and while Verstappen somehow scrapped through the Emilia-Romagna GP by winning it, his slender advantage over Lando Norris (in P2) showed that he was no longer in his comfort zone.

Monaco, on the other hand, exposed Red Bull’s weakest links to its rivals. If Canada too, pans out according to Verstappen’s prediction, a three-way fight for the race win could very well be on.

McLaren’s upgrades, which the Woking-based outfit brought in Miami, unleashed potential in the medium-speed corners. With the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve being full of those, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri look like the benchmark heading into the Canadian GP weekend.