Max Verstappen will be hoping to take another step towards a third world title by winning Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix.
The reigning Formula 1 champion will start the glamorous race on pole position after edging Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso in Saturday's qualifying. Verstappen is currently top of the Drivers' Championship, sitting 14 points clear of team-mate Sergio Perez.
To win Sunday's GP, Verstappen will need to get the better of Perez after failing to do so a year ago, when the Mexican clinched the win. That result left the Dutchman's dad Jos, a former F1 driver himself, accusing his son's team Red Bull of favouring Perez.
Verstappen was forced to accept third at last year's Monaco GP behind Carlos Sainz Jr in the Ferrari. The triumph was momentous for Perez, as it was just the third win of his F1 career. Yet Jos believes Red Bull should have done more to help his son win.
In a column for Verstappen's website, Jos wrote: "Red Bull achieved a good result, but at the same time exerted little influence to help Max to the front. That he finished third, he owes to Ferrari's mistake at that second stop of Charles Leclerc.
"The championship leader, Max, was not helped in that sense by the chosen strategy. It turned completely to Checo's favour [Perez].
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"That was disappointing to me, and I would have liked it to be different for the championship leader. I would have liked them to go for Max, but of course I am not entirely objective. I think 10 points from Max have been thrown away here."
Despite missing out in Monaco last year, Verstappen went on to win the Drivers' Championship by a whopping 146 points, with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in second. Although he is the heavy favourite, there are no guarantees Verstappen will triumph again this year.
Perez is right on his team-mates's tail after winning in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan. As such, it's imperative that Verstappen is victorious in Monaco to keep Perez at an arm's length. Perez will start Sunday's race in 20th after failing to qualify.
As the Monaco GP is a street race with fewer opportunities to overtake, Verstappen should be confident of winning. The second row will feature Leclerc and Esteban Ocon in the Alpine, while Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes joins Sainz on the third row.
Verstappen told reporters: "We knew this was going to be little bit of a struggle for us this weekend to get everything together, in qualifying you need to go all out... I gave it everything, clipped a few barriers, but you have to be on pole here."
Alonso added: "Pole position means a lot here in Monaco. But today Max was a little bit faster. First row is quite a big thing for us here... Let's see tomorrow what we can do in terms of strategy, if there is any weather coming or something, but we will try to win."
