Max Verstappen and Red Bull have saved several Formula 1 weekends this season with big turnarounds - but not in Monaco, where it "doesn't matter what you do with the set-up".
Verstappen's disappointing run to fifth in Monaco qualifying (though he will start fourth thanks to a Lewis Hamilton grid penalty for blocking him) came with Red Bull's biggest deficit of the season so far.
The four-time world champion was 0.7s away from pole, which equates to 1.022% - significantly greater than the next-worst performance in Bahrain, where Verstappen was 0.649% adrift.
As it comes just a week after Verstappen grabbed his second win of the season at Imola, this was a surprisingly big Saturday defeat. It also comes only 24 hours after Verstappen seemed quite optimistic that Red Bull's poor Friday practice could be explained by wrong set-up changes and the situation could be rectified as it has so often this season.
But having spent most of last year's Monaco weekend giving brutal assessments about Red Bull's biggest weaknesses, the four-time F1 world champion's complaints this time had a familiar air to them.
"In FP2 it was not very good, but clearly others also made a step forward," Verstappen said.
"The problem is normally, yes, we can fine-tune our balance, we find performance, but when the car is not performing in low-speed, it's not performing.
"It doesn't matter what you do with the set-up. And that's our problem.
"It's always been our problem from the start of '22. And it's still our problem."
Verstappen has flirted with being in the lead fight this weekend, setting the second-fastest time in FP1 and FP3. But Saturday's final practice was perhaps flattered by Red Bull using - and seemingly really enjoying - the medium tyre for Verstappen's final qualifying simulations, and he looked further adrift as soon as qualifying started.
A two tenths of a second deficit in Q1 became three tenths in Q2 and then the whopping 0.7s margin in Q3.
"I could've been a little closer but we just didn't have the grip," said Verstappen.
"When you don't have the grip around here, you can't really extract everything out of it.
"Doesn't matter if it's three tenths, four tenths, seven tenths. We're just not fast enough."
It was Monaco last year where Verstappen let rip his long-standing frustrations with certain Red Bull weaknesses relating to kerb riding and low-speed corner performance.
And he said that remains the case now - a better balance, thanks to the improvements in the 2025 RB21, but also "just not enough mechanical grip". Which means Monaco is "just not our track".
"Already in FP3 we had some limitations, then in qualifying I think it was quite clear that sector two was just very poor," he said.
"We just couldn't ride the kerbs, all the compressions, they were just not really good for us.
"It's a little bit better [than last year] but we're just weak in low speed and also where you have to take kerbs and where the camber drops away from you, that's where our car doesn't like that.
"It's never liked it. It still doesn't like it."
Hamilton's penalty gives Verstappen clearer sight of a potential podium on Sunday, and a mandatory two-stop race means there could be opportunities to jump rivals that wouldn't be there on a conventional Monaco weekend.
But Verstappen did not seem to be holding out much hope in a straight fight.
"No one really drives flat out, so we might need to get lucky with a strategy call - normally it's quite a long race but of course with two stops it might make it a little bit more interesting," said Verstappen.
"But it might be positive for you or negative. It's impossible to know at the moment. It definitely makes it more complicated to get it right.
"It will be just trying to stay with them in whatever way. And then hopefully get lucky - but again, I say 'get lucky' now, but maybe we get unlucky. You don't know."
Verstappen is once again alone at the front for Red Bull, as some promising moments for team-mate Yuki Tsunoda in practice translated into a Q2 exit and 12th on the grid.
Once again, Tsunoda had been close to Verstappen on a compromised Red Bull Friday, but failed to take the step Verstappen made on Saturday - lapping 0.7s slower in FP3, and 0.5s slower while being eliminated in Q2.
Tsunoda put that down to not being able to put together a clean lap and lamented an "unfair" situation and while he had not set a proper lap before the red flag interruption, his exact gripe was unclear.
"The pace was there throughout the week apart from the sessions I got traffic or didn't get a lap," said Tsunoda.
"I was running pretty close with Max so that shows the pace was there. It was also a pretty clean week until today.
"Very frustrating."
