“We believed the Medium would be enough,” Christian Horner sheds light on the strategical win in Monaco
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Christian Horner
Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team principal has now seen three Monaco wins in the last four races, with Sergio Perez’s victory in the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix. The Mexican crashed his Rb-18 at the end of Q3 on Saturday, which placed him on P3 and his teammate on P4, which to start the race was still being hurt.
Charles Leclerc managed to get a very good start and was five seconds ahead of the lot, moving towards an easy win until the time came for the tyre strategies to mark their role in the game. The top four got shuffled, including the lead, after the first pit stop for the intermediate played an undercut. With Carlos not pitting for interns had a plan to directly jump on slicks as soon as the track got dry., which later came out to be a better decision in terms of track position.
Carlos pitted for slicks as per the plan behind him came the race leader, Charles Leclerc after a miscommunication that forced him to get on Hard compound. The moment both the Ferraris got into the pits, the Bulls took the charge of the race and managed to clear 6 seconds in two laps and went into the pits for the slicks and successfully managed the overcut on Ferraris.
Lap 30 saw a red flag with Mick dragging the barriers for a necessary repair, leading all the drivers inside the pits. After the flag ended both the Ferraris came out on the 10 laps’ old hard tyres to a surprise Bulls were on the new pair of Mediums.
Christian Horner cleared out the strategy to put both of his drivers on Mediums, “We didn’t want to be exposed at the restart, so we believed the Medium would be enough,” Horner told Sky Sports F1 after the race.
What didn’t surprise the spectators was the wearing of Mediums towards the end of the race, with Perez locking up to Carlos and almost overtaking him for the win, he managed brilliant tyre management and came out with the third win of his career and first of the season.
“That lock-up for Checo [Perez] put him under a little bit of pressure, but he managed it beautifully, [It’s] a great result, I’m so proud of him after yesterday (Perez crashed at the end of Q3). He’s been on fire all weekend and, strategically, I don’t think we had the quickest car today. But we got it right with the double pitstop and it was all about teamwork,” reported planetf1.
Is Sergio Perez a contender for the Championship?
After the victory in Monaco, Sergio Perez is comfortably sitting third on the championship table and has cut down the gap to 15 points to the lead of the championship. Spanish Grand Prix cleared a few things out about who will be the preferred one if it comes down to make a choice. But after the Monaco Sunday, Horner mentioned Sergio as a probable contender for lead. “Perez is in this Championship as much as Verstappen is” said Horner.
Races ahead could bring a three-way battle for the win and could make 2022 an interesting one. The next round is on another street circuit, Baku and as the season had been going it’s quite evident Perez has been much better on-street tracks than his teammate Max, next race could again shuffle the top of the table.
Also Read: “F1 is beyond a joke,” Fans left furious after red flag further delays start to Monaco Grand Prix
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Soham Raj Jain
(480 Articles Published)