Opinion: Redemption for Ricciardo in Monaco

Daniel Ricciardo topped every practice session, every qualifying session and it was his race to lose after Saturday. It was all looking too good to be true for the Australian but it’s never an easy victory with Ricciardo.

Ricciardo had set a fantastic qualifying lap of a 1min10.8 which was the fastest ever lap around the Monte Carlo circuit on Saturday. The Australian was absolutely on it all weekend and the speed he carried through Tabac and the Swimming Pool Chicane was incredible. I could watch an F1 car at full speed through that section all day.

This came after Max Verstappen binned the car in FP3 at exactly the same spot he did in Q1 in 2016. It was a small misjudgement with massive consequences. By turning the car a fraction to early cost him any hope of a maiden pole position and a Monaco win. He had to overtake Carlos Sainz before turn 15 but I don’t think that’s any excuse for his crash. He passed him well before the braking zone and was still on the ideal line. If you remove Sainz then I think Verstappen still would have crashed. It’s a bit more than a bad patch that the young Dutchman is going through and you have to ask, when will he stop making so many errors? It seems as if he is now approaching everything he does with a bit more caution and that crash in FP3 was the final nail in the coffin for him and even his over-confident personality has realised that giving it absolutely everything to win isn’t always the right answer.

Look at Vettel in the final laps of the race on Sunday. He backed off as soon as he nearly went off at Mirabeau after a severe lock up because he knew that he would gain points on Hamilton in the championship and he didn’t want to do something silly and drop points to Hamilton. That’s just one example of taking a conservative approach when you need to.

Verstappen has the speed but that’s just one part of the makings of a champion. It was a good recovery from him on Sunday to 9th place and he was more cautious. The 20-year-old didn’t dive down the inside of someone as soon as he got there but instead stayed tucked in behind and waited for an opportunity which has less risk. He showed signs of his usual aggressiveness but not as much as normal. His move around the outside of Carlos Sainz into the Nouvelle Chicane was excellent and it was just about legal to me. Most drivers would have bailed out and completely cut the chicane but Max locked the brakes and nearly came to a complete stop to get the car turned in, and up and over the top of the big, yellow kerb. People saying that he should be dropped from Red Bull will not have their opinion come true. Max already has superstar status and is brilliant for the commercial side of things as well. Getting rid of him will sot Red Bull a lot from an advertising point of view as well as one of the fastest drivers on the grid. It seems as if his 3 year contract for the team last year came at the perfect time for him because any question marks about him being dropped can go out of the window. He would have to do something pretty tragic to be dropped by Red Bull.

Back to the man of the moment and that was Daniel Ricciardo. “I’m losing power” was what we heard on the team radio and you could hear the hearts of all of his fans and the team sink as we thought he was set for a retirement and a devastating loss.

“We had a lot to deal with during the race. I felt loss of power and I thought the race was done. I got home just using six gears. Thanks to the team I got it back.

It turned out to be an MGU-K failure which I think would cost him around 2 seconds per lap around the streets of Monaco. You have to factor in that Ricciardo could only use 6 gears so as soon as he got towards the rev limiter in 6th gear he would have to lift and coast so that he didn’t send valves flying to make the engine temperature go sky-high.

Some people have said that his drive was overrated by the media but I don’t agree with this. Monaco is the toughest track to not make an error on, even when you aren’t pushing at the maximum. Ricciardo also had to move his brake bias forward by 7% which is a lot. You would normally move it by around 1-2% during a race so to move it by 7% not only hurts your laptime because you’re compromising your maximum braking potential but also it’s so easy to make a mistake by locking up your front tyre and going off-line or into the wall.

All of this is what Ricciardo had to deal with as well as a 4-time world champion who was bearing down on him and filling the mirrors of the Red Bull. What impressed me most was how quickly Ricciardo adapted to the situation. It would have been so easy to make a mistake when he had to change the setup of the car so dramatically and make up for the loss of 160BHP in the corners. He kept Vettel more than 1 second behind at the exit of Portier and Antony Noghes which was crucial as after those corners came the straights. Vettel would gain so much time after the final corner and to the top of the hill at Massenet (around 0.7 seconds) and it was the time that Ricciardo made through the final sector which stopped any chance of an attack from Vettel.

An advantage Ricciardo had, was that the Ferrari’s and Mercedes were graining their front tyres very quickly whereas the Red Bulls were so light on their tyres and have been all season. They were also able to fire them up pretty quickly at Monaco for qualifying and after the VSC in the race.

Track position is more than king at Monaco so it’s without a doubt that had Ricciardo had his problem at any other circuit then he would not have won. In a way he’s a bit lucky that he had the problem at Monaco but we must not underestimate the difficulty to drive a car knowing that you aren’t going as fast as you could. Psychologically it’s very tough and like Ricciardo said he wanted to hide in a corner and have a cry. It wasn’t as impressive as Michael Schumacher’s 5th gear only second place at the Spanish GP in 1994 but it is still a mighty drive nonetheless.

Lewis Hamilton dropped just 3 points to Sebastian Vettel which he should be content with. Coming into the weekend I thought Mercedes would struggle to get onto the podium but an excellent lap from Hamilton in qualifying and Verstappen’s crash in FP3 helped Hamilton salvage his 122nd F1 podium. Mercedes graining their tyres on the hypersoft and supersoft reiterates my thoughts on how they struggle as the tyre compounds get softer.

It’s a shame that Mercedes and Ferrari were looking at each other so much because the race could have been a lot more exciting than it was. Lewis Hamilton described it as “the most boring race of his career” whilst Fernando Alonso said “it was probably the most boring race ever”. It was better than Spain in my opinion and probably still better than the opening race in Melbourne.

Anyway, it could have been better had Mercedes or Ferrari been brave and gone for a 2 stopper. With Ricciardo backing the pack up and going 2-3 seconds slower than the pace he would have been going at if he didn’t have his problem then I don’t understand why none of the chasers made a pitstop to get a new set (or a very young set) of hypersoft tyres to blaze home and try to overtake to make the race exciting and to prove their overtaking credentials.

There was a good 10-15 lap window where Hamilton, for example, could have pitted and came out with clean air to close the gap down to the top 5 pack which would perhaps trigger Vettel or Raikkonen to react as well which would definitely have intensified the race. Bottas was on supersoft tyres rather than ultrasofts and probably had the best pace in the second stint but just couldn’t use it because he was stuck behind Kimi Raikkonen. Again, he could have pitted and not lose any positions to try and get a better opportunity to overtake his fellow Finn with quicker and younger tyres. Even if either of the Mercedes came out behind 6th place, that would have been okay because it was Esteban Ocon who was in 6th and he had already let Hamilton and Bottas through very easily earlier in the race.

It’s very annoying to see teams help other teams and Mercedes Team Principle Toto Wolff said after the race “that’s the way it is” when asked about Ocon letting his drivers through. I don’t like team orders but teams helping other teams just shouldn’t be allowed. Ocon could have driven around without defending to keep Hamilton and Bottas behind but he completely got out of the throttle to let the Mercedes cars through. Something had clearly been said because otherwise, Hamilton wouldn’t have pitted so early knowing that he was always going to come out behind Ocon. Mercedes clearly told Force India to get Ocon out-of-the-way or else they would have waited a few more laps to pit Hamilton.

However, Ocon did have a stellar weekend himself with a 6th in qualifying and cementing that position in the race. With the slow pace at the front, he closed in on the leaders along with Gasly, Hulkenberg and a recovering Verstappen. Pierre Gasly was equally as impressive as he did 41 laps on the hypersoft tyres and was very quick at the end of the race. Nico Hulkenberg was on a similar strategy but with different rubber. For Gasly though, it was another superb drive to add to his incredible 4th place finish in Bahrain.

Whilst Gasly continues to impress, his teammate Brendon Hartley is yet to shine. He looked excellent in practice on Thursday and was matching and beating Gasly but he failed to get out of Q1 yet again. It was partly down to bad luck but he should have been able to get one good lap in to get into Q2. The Kiwi was unlucky to get hit by Charles Leclerc who suffered a brake failure but Hartley’s woes continue in F1.

Some excellent drives throughout the field meant that there was no safety car in the race. A surprise, but it also shows that the current grid is not as bad as most people think. Superstars are emerging and the rivalries at the top are only going to intensify.

It could be a classic season!