“He won the Monaco GP for Red Bull,” Jolyon Palmer gives credit to Pierre Gasly for his bold strategy

“He won the Monaco GP for Red Bull,” Jolyon Palmer gives credit to Pierre Gasly for his bold strategy

Pierre Gasly and Sergio Perez

Pierre Gasly might be a Red Bull outcast but he, unknowingly, was able to help his old employers at the Monaco GP. The race on the streets of Monte Carlo was a rain interrupted affair which posed a lot of strategic conundrums in the mind of top teams, including Red Bull. But, the Frenchman was clear about his strategy from the start as he switched to inters on Lap 2 which allowed him to get past Guanyu Zhou and Daniel Ricciardo by Lap 14.

What makes these two overtakes so important and impressive is the near impossibility to overtake at this narrow Monaco circuit. This, in turn, meant that Intermediates were way faster than the full wets. Pierre Gasly’s switch caught the eye of the entire paddock but Red Bull were the first ones who took the gamble of bringing in Sergio Perez as early as Lap 16 of the race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBciLO2P0C8

The Mexican was able to clock some serious lap times for two laps before Charles Leclerc pitted. What this meant there was a massive opportunity for Sergio Perez to undercut Charles Leclerc and that’s exactly what happened. During this process, Carlos Sainz decided not to pit for intermediates and straightaway switch to slicks. This made him lose position to Perez when he came out of his pit stop.

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Also Read: “They don’t have the balls,” Bernie Ecclestone rules out the possibility of F1 removing the Monaco Grand Prix from its calendar.

According to Jolyon Palmer, Pierre Gasly’s bold switch to inters helped Red Bull and Sergio Perez to win the Monaco GP

Pierre Gasly
Pierre Gasly

Jolyon Palmer believes that none of this would have happened, had Red Bull made that early switch to inters. He said, “I think what actually maybe gave Red Bull this win was Gasly was making progress in the AlphaTauri in a sort of perverse way.”

“He showed you could overtake and it meant that everyone wanted to go for the Inters. Because Gasly pitted so early and, on the Inters, was way quicker than anyone else. So, immediately, everyone knows ‘OK, the Inters are quicker.”

“If Gasly had just been boxed in immediately by Zhou, having been five seconds a lap quicker, and was then just stuck, then no one would have taken the Inters,” as reported by planetf1.

We all could see the hesitancy in the paddock in the unpredictable weather of Monaco. Therefore, Jolyon Palmer is spot on when he says that Pierre Gasly’s bold move helped everyone, especially Red Bull and Sergio Perez.

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