MONTE CARLO, Monaco -- Red Bull admitted a communication error between the pit wall and garage ultimately cost Daniel Ricciardo victory at the Monaco Grand Prix.
As Ricciardo crossed the line 7.3 seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton it was clear that a 13.6s pit stop on lap 32 had cost the Red Bull driver his fourth career win. A typical F1 pit stop can be conducted in under three seconds, but a mix up in the garage meant the right tyres were not ready when Ricciardo entered the pits.
Hamilton had pitted a lap earlier from the lead to change from a very well-worn set of full wets to ultra-softs slicks, but a slow outlap on the still-drying circuit gave Red Bull a healthy window in which to pit Ricciardo and retake the lead. Originally the team had prepared soft tyres at the front of the garage for Ricciardo, but a late decision from the pit wall to fit his car with super-softs led to a mix-up in the chain of command.
"We knew that that was our window of opportunity to get back past him, so Daniel was extremely quick on his in-lap," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner explained. "I think Daniel was about seven or eight seconds quicker than Lewis was on his equivalent outlap, and having seen the Mercedes put on the ultra-soft, the call was made with plenty of time -- at least I felt it was plenty of time -- for us to go one step harder on the compound and go on to the super-soft.
"So the call was made to go to the super-soft tyre and based on how we are set up here in Monaco, the tyres are on heaters both in the garage and behind the garage, and unfortunately the set of tyres that were called for weren't readily to hand and were at the back of the garage. There was a scramble, with the mechanics originally having a soft tyre ready, and when that change was requested to go to the super-soft those tyres were actually right at the back of the garage and couldn't be got to the car in time.
"It cost probably about 10 seconds in the stop, and even despite the delay the two drivers were side-by-side when Daniel came out, showing how quick Daniel's in-lap had been and how slow Lewis' outlap had been. It was gutting for the whole team to lose a victory like that, but we win together and we lose we together and all we can do is apologise to Daniel that we haven't given him good enough service today.
"Unfortunately this communication error between the pit wall upstairs and the tyre management downstairs in the garage has let us down today. Effectively the race was lost at that pit stop."
Red Bull made the decision to pit Ricciardo 30 seconds before his stop just as he was exiting the tunnel. Teams usually have the tyres for the next pit stop ready at the front of the garage ahead of the call, but the late decision to fit super-softs and the tight confines of the Monaco garages led to the mix up.
"I'm not making excuses because there are none," Horner added, "but obviously with the tightness of the garages here it's very tight to have extreme wets, intermediates and three different types of slicks for both cars in the garage at one time. But as I say, it's a communication error that has happened at short notice, with 30 seconds notice, that on a normal working day would have been no issue at all.
Horner said the decision to go for super-softs instead of softs was made after Mercedes surprised Red Bull by opting for the ultra-soft tyre. The ultra-soft is the fastest tyre in Pirelli's range but was not expected to last the distance from lap 31 when Hamilton pitted to the end of the 77-lap race.
"Of course the pit wall can see what tyres the other teams are electing and what we saw is Hamilton a lap earlier go on to the ultra-soft tyres, which we felt were quite marginal to go to the end of the race, so we elected to put Daniel one step harder on the super-soft tyre, but the problem is that the call was made between pit wall and tyre management downstairs and basically there was a miscommunication as to what tyres were in the garage at what time."
Horner said the situation was even more painful as Red Bull had the potential to beat Mercedes on pure pace in Monaco.
"It's frustrating to be sitting here disappointed with a second place finish having pushed Mercedes hard all weekend. There was a victory up for grabs and with a standard pit stop we would be sitting here as winners in Monte Carlo. Despite that we still finished second and have closed to within nine points of Ferrari in the constructors' championship and Daniel is now third in the drivers' championship.
"We have scored our first pole position since 2013 and so there are a lot of positives that, on complete reflection of the weekend, we can take out of Monte Carlo. But sitting here right now it's pretty painful. There was a victory there for the taking today and unfortunately we haven't converted it."