Led by Christian Horner Red Bull had a mixed day at the F1 Monaco GP as Max Verstappen finished in fourth place while teammate Yuki Tsunoda slumped to P17.
Verstappen inherited fourth on the grid from Lewis Hamilton after the Ferrari driver received a three-place grid drop for impeding the Dutchman in qualifying.
Despite starting in P4, the reigning champion didn’t have the pace to match the leading trio of Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri.
Red Bull were gambling on safety cars and red flags in F1 Monaco GP
Red Bull started Verstappen on the hard tyre to extend the first stint before eventually pitting on Lap 28, nine laps later than the medium-shod Norris at Monaco.
This tactic put them in a position to challenge Piastri’s third place, but Verstappen couldn’t capitalise despite a slightly tardy start to the Australian’s second stint.
The reigning champion, while hoping for a safety car, led the race towards the end. This gave Leclerc a chance to challenge Norris as Verstappen had no grip in his Red Bull.
Horner explained in his post-race media session that the lack of drama at Monaco made life more difficult for Verstappen.
He said: “We rolled the dice a little bit today. Starting on the hard, our tactic was always to go long, with the main opportunity being safety cars or red flags, which can sometimes be the case here.
“Max led large portions of the race, but it was one of those Monaco’s where everybody pretty much behaved. So, at the first stop, we got pretty close to Oscar at one point. He had a wobble on his second lap out after his pit stop, but we would have been at best alongside.
“So we decided we’d keep going. The upside was if there had been a safety car or a red flag, Max would have led. Then again, we had the medium tyre, went very, very long and stopped on the last lap.”
Yuki Tsunoda’s bold strategy didn’t pay off
Red Bull dealt with Tsunoda’s lacklustre qualifying by pitting the Japanese driver on the opening lap to begin a 73-lap stint on the hard tyre.
He initially gained time but couldn’t make inroads when he caught the back of the field, as they drove well under the limit.
As Horner explained, Tsuonda had a tricky race and was beaten by both Racing Bulls cars driven by Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar.
“For Yuki, we did the inverse. And when lap one initially looked like he would get, you know, a significant benefit from it, but then everybody started to drive extremely slowly as they started to play around with the tactics.
“So, he was basically on the same set of tyres for the whole race and did his fastest laps at the end there. When he finally got some clear traffic, he was just sat in a queue the entire race. So very, very difficult for him today.“
Horner: “It was almost a race to be the slowest” in the F1 Monaco GP
It is almost impossible to pass at Monaco and despite a mandatory two-stop, the entire field managed their pace and tyre life over the 78 laps.
Horner explained that with Hamilton almost a minute behind Verstappen, there was no need to push to the limits.
The Red Bull team principal said: “At the end it just looked like Lando didn’t want to go anywhere near Max.
“It was almost a race to be the slowest. You know, Lewis was so far behind, over 50 seconds behind Max, you know, Max on a set of tyres that was way past his best. Lando didn’t want to go within two seconds of him, no matter how much the tyres were thin.”
