Red Bull Racing star Daniel Ricciardo claimed a dominant victory in the Monaco Grand Prix - despite suffering from a powertrain problem for the bulk of the race.
The Australian dominated the weekend, setting the fastest time in every practice session before qualifying on pole. He then controlled the early stages of the race ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, until suddenly suffering from a loss of power due to a failure of his energy recovery system of his car’s Tag Heuer-badged Renault engines.
Ricciardo was forced to drive without using his top two gears for the bulk of the event - with Red Bull estimating he lost around 25% of his engine’s power - but he was able to fend off Vettel on the tight street circuit, and even pulled clear in the closing stages when Vettel struggled with his tyres.
“The problems threw a lot of doubt in my mind for a few laps,” said Ricciardo after his second win of 2018. “Every lap I goy by with no extra problems was a little victory. I was happy to see the chequered flag.”
Here’s what else we learned from the Monaco Grand Prix.
Red Bull’s mixed fortunes
Ricciardo’s pole position was just the second of his F1 career - the first came back at Monaco in 2016, when he dominated the race until a bungled pit stop by his team. It also meant that Red Bull’s bookended the grid, with Max Verstappen starting last.
The Dutchman missed qualifying after crashing in final practice on Saturday morning, adding to the string of incidents he’s had this year. That prompted his team boss, Christian Horner, to say that Verstappen needs to change his approach. He added: “He needs to learn from it, and stop making these errors. He knows that more than anybody.”
Verstappen partly redeemed himself in the race, pulling off a string of overtaking moves on the tight streets of Monte Carlo to salvage a ninth place finish.
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Bigger cars same size track
FIA made the cars wider this year making overtaking more difficult thus rarer.
Just wish there'd be more wet F1's
Local Gala...?
I always felt it was an F1 Race for the locals, little has changed over the decades the Race has been run, it s held within a tiny Principality where the great and the good go to pay less Tax, yes it’s one of the last true old F1 Circuits but the F1 Cars have outgrown it they weren’t running at there true potential,DRS... this just wasn’t needed ,Ricciardo won in a wounded their word not mine Car, if this Race had been anywhere else Ricciardo would’ve finished about tenth, what made me snigger a bit was when Christian Horner tried to liken Riccardo’s performance to Nigel Mansell’s tussle with Senna!
Monaco
Agree,however in golfing parlance,it's like putting todays elite professional golfers onto a course with all holes having doglegs at the carry zone of 250-300 yards.They have to adjust their game as with Monaco,which I find very interesting.
What I find more interesting, is what appears to be a lack of management of the drivers by Christian Horner.Remember when Vettel and Webber were "team members", and the huge falling out,which I believe,as an arm chair expert, was the management of the two drivers by Horner. Webber has now said he is reconciled with Vettel but it can't change history.
Should the Monaco Grand Prix be canned then?
In all respect every single Monaco Grand Prix is dull and boring due to very few overtaking opportunities while you know that it's always going to be someone who qualified in the top 4 will win the race. So what's the solution? It's nigh on impossible to redesign the track to improve close racing and overtaking so should it be canned?