Verstappen takes one ‘positive’ from painful Monaco weekend

That allowed the Ferraris and McLarens ahead, who had all lined up on mediums, to change to hards amid the free swaps permitted in the pit lane and then run to the chequered flag with relative ease.

After converting his starting position of sixth, between the Mercedes drivers, Verstappen said: “For most of the race we were all driving like four seconds off the pace, I think.

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“The red flag basically ruined it a bit, because then everyone had a free pit stop. Some, of course, like we did, had to then switch to the medium, and we knew that was going to be really hard to the end.

“For us there was a lot of management to the end and that didn’t really make it enjoyable. The people on the hard tyres, towards the end they probably could push a bit more, but on the other hand, everyone was quite careful.

“No one really wanted to stress their tyres too much, because you know you can’t pass around here, so [it was] not really exciting. It’s a bit of a shame.”