How Ricciardo won in Monaco

What you need to know:

  • Vettel finished second and Hamilton third, with Vettel reducing the points deficit to the Brit in the championship by three to 14 points.
  • The Finns, Raikkonen and Bottas, were fourth and fifth.

When one thinks of the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix, “Ricciardo” and “Redemption” are the two words that repetitively keep coming up. Everything that a driver can do to dominate a particular race, Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo did, and the result went as expected, though with a certain twist to it.

If there is a track where the Safety Car is a welcome tradition, it has to be Monaco with the many twist and turns of the famous street circuit.

For the top five drivers on the grid, it was a welcome relief knowing that Ricciardo’s teammate, Max Verstappen, would start last on the grid and not get in their way during the race.

Verstappen crashed during final practice and since the car was not repaired in time for qualifying, the Dutchman had to contend with starting at the back of the grid.

It was a painful lesson for the 20-year-old driver who knew that he had a car capable of winning the race but had to bear the brunt of a costly mistake in practice. At the start, Ricciardo made a smooth getaway giving Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel no chance to overtake him before the first turn. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton started third. Surprisingly, there were no crashes in the first lap, providing relief for the Safety Car driver.

Monaco is a difficult track to overtake and so when vehicles settled behind each other, the one thing that could make the difference in the race became the tyre choice coupled with the pit stop strategy.

Ricciardo set the fastest lap by the third lap of the race and was in no danger of having any of the two four-time world champions behind him, Vettel and Hamilton, overtake him.

By the sixth lap, Verstappen, who started in 20th position, was 17th and three laps later, he was 14th.

Mercedes opted to pit Hamilton early in a bid to test the undercut. Hamilton went into the pit stop in third position and emerged sixth, behind the Force India of Esteban Ocon which he managed to overtake before long without much struggle.

Meanwhile, Ricciardo was still setting fastest laps and it was increasingly seeming as if he would drive off alone into the horizon to take the chequered flag.

Vettel soon responded to Hamilton’s pit stop and one lap later, the race leader also went in for fresh tyres.

For the teams, the plan was for a one-stop race.

Hamilton’s teammate, Valtteri Bottas pitted and emerged behind the McLaren of two-time world champion, Fernando Alonso. Would he be stuck behind the McLaren for a lengthy stint? Not quite as Alonso exited into the pit stop two laps later to the relief of the Mercedes crew.

The race was not yet halfway done when Ricciardo said through his radio that his car was “losing power”.

One would think that Vettel would have wrested the initiative from Ricciardo, and he did seem like he was going to do so, but Monaco being the track that it is, Ricciardo was able to withstand the assault.

Even Hamilton was notified of the woes facing the race leader but there was little he could do while running third to improve on his position. For a while, Vettel was within DRS range of Ricciardo, but got nowhere near effecting the pass.

Behind the leading trio, Bottas was right behind Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, but he too suffered the ‘Monaco fate’ — little to no room to overtake, just follow the car in front. At the halfway point of the 78-lap race, all 20 cars were still running.

This was maintained until the 53rd lap when Alonso had a gearbox problem that forced him out after valiantly keeping Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly at bay.

A brake issue saw rookie Charles Leclerc plough his Sauber behind the back of Brendon Hartley’s Toro Rosso in his home race. The nature of that accident was such that there was no need to deploy the Safety Car, with a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) sufficing.

None of the leaders chose to pit during the VSC pointing to how keen they were to maintain their positions and nurse their tyres to the very end.

When the race resumed, it was left to Ricciardo to drive for four laps to claim a famous victory after topping all the practice and qualifying sessions. The redemption was complete for Ricciardo who was meant to win the race at the same circuit in 2016, but for a pit stop error.

Vettel finished second and Hamilton third, with Vettel reducing the points deficit to the Brit in the championship by three to 14 points.

The Finns, Raikkonen and Bottas, were fourth and fifth.