How Red Bull lost the Monaco Grand Prix

3:40 PM ET

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.

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“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 …

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