Scott Mitchell-Malm

But obviously, when you look back at Lance Stroll's crash, for example, you can see the stones on the front left tyre, and it was exactly the same with Charles Leclerc.

Yeah, it's very much a weekend of what if for Max Verstappen.

What if this engine problem, which basically stopped him.

The team said a problem kind of materialized in the formation lap.

This power unit was going to be its final race.

It was due to be either put into the practice pool or retired completely after this event.

But it's obviously not lasted until it's the end of the quota.

So we'll never know what pace there was.

Would he have been able to get rid of Kimi?

Would he have been able to have the pace to put Kimi under a bit of pressure and complicate the strategy at the front?

Would he have jumped off the line at the red flag restart if events had played out in the same way and we'd had the red flag?

We will never know in terms of that dynamic because all we saw at the front was that Antonelli's pace was much, much better than

than the Ferraris and we'll never know where Red Bull, whether Max would be nearer to the Mercedes or just ahead of the Ferraris.

I think it's a weekend that has exposed where McLaren's weaknesses are.

It's a weekend where the Mercedes power unit itself couldn't stretch its legs.

So there wasn't a benefit of having more top speed, bigger benefits of greater energy.

So you've lost a bit of an edge on that.

McLaren openly admits itself is lacking downforce it needs to bring more to the car it's embarked on this upgrade package the new front wing concept that came in Canada didn't race it there it tried an updated version here this weekend evaluated it but decided not to commit to it that's going to come more trials of that are expected in Spain so it's pushing on but it needs more downforce it needs tracks where its power unit can give it a bit of an edge and

And it's also beholden by a car concept that served it very well last year of being able to look after its tyres, being very gentle on it, which pays off when it comes to races with high degradation.

But the Monaco weekend's absolute critical aspect is firing your tyres up, get them into the right window.