Red Bull engineer Monaghan: "Catching up with Mercedes isn't impossible'

Monumental effort of the team

Max Verstappen finished third and Alexander Albon fourth in the second Grand Prix, which is mainly due to the countermeasures taken to prevent a repeat of the first Grand Prix on a mechanical level. "It's nice for all that monumental effort that has gone into both revise the car in terms of its specification", says chief engineer Paul Monaghan at Motorsport.

"Honda have done us a stunning job, as has everybody as usual within Aston Martin Red Bull Racing. So a culmination of the efforts. It's nice to be on the podium, a good reward for Max, he drove a damn good race. Nice reward to see Alex following him home. He defended admirably to those who chose to challenge him."

Combination of frustration and happiness

Still Mercedes turned out to be a buddy too big again and that causes mixed feelings. "The frustration is looking at the Mercedes, it's ahead of us again. So that's a rather understandable combination of happiness and frustration", Monaghan looks back on the second Grand Prix of the year, in which they performed at their best according to the proportions.

"You can look as well as I can at where we we are slower than the Mercedes, and it's a little bit everywhere. So we've got a bit of work to do. It looks like their engine is pretty strong, it looks like the car is strong. And it's gonna be a tough challenge to catch them, but let's see if we can. It's not insurmountable, it's not impossible."

Nevertheless Monaghan sees the result of the second Grand Prix positively: "And it is a nice reward for Honda, They've worked extremely hard after last weekend, and we're going forward."