Many believe that the 2021 season, when Max Verstappen won his maiden world championship, was the pivotal point of his F1 career in turning his fortunes around. After all, the Dutchman won 10 Grands Prix that year and took down the reigning champion Lewis Hamilton, ending the Briton’s seven-year dominance in the sport.
However, the roots of his turnaround as an elite champion started way back in 2018, when Verstappen suffered from a terrible weekend in Monaco. Since then, the Red Bull driver has been in sublime form, barely crashing out of races and clinching podiums and wins at every other race weekend.
Per F1 statistics spotter Daniel Valente, Verstappen has scored 100 podiums after the 2018 Monaco GP, the first of which came at the immediate next weekend in Canada. On top of that, in the 128 races he finished in this span of six and a half seasons, the four-time champion has finished outside the top five only 11 times! Talk about consistency.
There was never much doubt on Verstappen’s ability to achieve such metronomic consistency in his performances. But the way the Dutch driver used to crash for Red Bull in his initial seasons with them, it seemed like he was squandering away too many opportunities. Monaco 2018 is one such weekend Verstappen would like to erase from his memory. But why so?
The Principality always gave Red Bull a great chance in the turbo-hybrid era to get one over Mercedes. Amid the Silver Arrows’ dominance, the Milton Keynes outfit were often at par with — and at times better than — the Mercedes cars in Monaco.
Max Verstappen has 100 podiums & 117 top 5s out of 128 race finishes since the 2018 Canadian GP, which was the first race after his infamous Monaco weekend.
Only 11 finishes outside the top 5 in a 6+ season span. That Monaco weekend flipped the switch.
(h/t to @scarlettxx389) pic.twitter.com/VCLMnfLXNY
— Daniel Valente ️ (@F1GuyDan) February 7, 2025
In 2018, Verstappen could have had the chance to win the prestigious race just like his teammate Daniel Ricciardo did eventually. However, a hefty crash on Saturday morning in FP3 meant the Dutchman couldn’t participate in qualifying at all.
With track positing being king in Monaco and Verstappen starting at the back, he was nowhere in contention for the race win and eventually finished only ninth. Perhaps that weekend awakened the beast in Verstappen and he hasn’t looked back since.
How Verstappen bounced back in 2018
A podium in the subsequent race in Montreal would have rejuvenated Verstappen, for sure. Apparently, the remainder of his season was rather superb, given Red Bull wasn’t as involved in both championship fights.
Verstappen secured 10 podiums in total post-Monaco, which also included race wins in Austria and Mexico. These were the two tracks, like Monaco, where the Red Bull team had always had a stronghold. So, it was natural for the Dutchman to clinch these victories, but his execution — which was lacking previously — impressed everyone.
“This feels ******* good!”@Max33Verstappen is one happy chappy #AustrianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/JAwbeom1XQ
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 1, 2018
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner praised Verstappen’s turnaround after the 2018 Monaco GP. “[He had done] really [well] since after the Monaco Grand Prix. That hurt him quite badly because he’s obviously extremely quick in Monaco – right up until the point he crashed!”, Horner said per Sky Sports F1.
Horner also lauded how Verstappen beat more experienced teammate Ricciardo often. In fact, the Dutchman outscored the Australian in 2018 by a significant margin of 79 points. While it can be said that Ricciardo experienced immense bad luck with reliability that year, Verstappen ironing out his crash-prone tendencies and delivering top results was commendable.
Verstappen has carried on that momentum since then and has gone from strength to strength with each passing season. So, it makes sense how Verstappen was able to pounce on the first opportunity he got to win the world title in 2021, as he had sharpened his craft for two and half years before that.
