Max Verstappen’s ‘advice’ to Kimi Antonelli comes back to haunt him after Monaco Grand Prix DNF

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Max Verstappen retired from Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix on the opening lap after failing to make it off the line.

Verstappen couldn’t get going when the lights went out in Monaco, forcing him to pull off the racing line as the rest of the field came flooding past.

The Red Bull driver was instructed to ‘bring it home’ over the radio, trundling back to the pits for his second DNF of the season after his earlier retirement in China.

Max Verstappen told Kimi Antonelli to ‘wait one second’ at Monaco Grand Prix start

In the post-qualifying press conference on Saturday, Verstappen was asked whether he had any advice for Kimi Antonelli after the Mercedes driver bagged his first Monaco pole.

“So, when the lights go out, you wait one second,” Verstappen joked. “That’s my advice!”

The irony of these comments wasn’t lost on F1 fans after the Dutchman’s instant retirement. The battle between the two drivers was hotly anticipated, but never materialised.

“Narrator: He did, in fact, wait one second,” one fan wrote on X.

“Max, you weren’t meant to follow this advice,” another quipped.

“How many seconds were you planning on waiting?” a third comment read.

Other posts included ‘you didn’t even last for one second’ and ‘took his own advice I see’. A final user joked that Verstappen was ‘trying to lead by example’.

• READ MORE: Max Verstappen reveals when Gianpiero Lambiase will stop being his race engineer before McLaren move

The performance of Red Bull’s first-ever F1 power unit has been impressive, but reliability is the main concern at this stage.

Hadjar dropped out of the Australian GP and Canada Sprint with engine issues and also reported serious problems during the Monaco GP.

Elsewhere, there was a pre-race scare for Liam Lawson in the customer Racing Bulls but he eventually made it to the starting grid.