Red Bull’s Sergio Perez secured the third victory of his Formula One career at the Monaco Grand Prix after the good work of Charles Leclerc was undone by his Ferrari team.
Here are our conclusions from Monte Carlo …
Sergio Perez: Not bad for a number two driver
Perez had no doubts about his condition at Red Bull after the Spanish GP, where he was tasked with passing his teammate Max Verstappen.
At the heart of the moment and without all the facts of the situation available in the booth, Perez called Red Bull’s use of team orders “unfair” by the team’s radio.
The team’s preference really shouldn’t have been news (Verstappen, after all, is and will always be the point around which the world of Red Bull revolves), but the finding had the potential to break to the spirit.
Instead, he responded by producing the best performance of his career at Red Bull so far in Monaco.
Perez was really the fastest of the Red Bull drivers in the principality, where he overtook Verstappen in all sessions except Q1 and was better equipped to cope with the slow rotation of the RB18.
His bravery in being the first favorite to switch to intermediate tires was rewarded with leadership as he jumped the two Ferraris.
And while a major media blockade on Mirabeau shortly after the restart meant a series of awkward laps as the clock ticked forward, Perez was in the position of the track and placed his car in all the right places, holding the pressure to achieve victory.
“Winning Monaco is a dream come true as a driver; When you enter F1 and when you come to Monaco and when you drive for the first time, you always dream of one day winning the race or running here, ”he said.
“So it’s amazing, such a great day for me.”
“Release Pool Video”. 😍💦 #MonacoGP 🇲🇨 pic.twitter.com/uZViZIZEDr
– Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) May 29, 2022
No driver on the current grid competes with a greater sense of national identity than Perez, whose tears on the podium while the Mexican national anthem was played will be one of the highlights of the season.
One weekend he raced with a helmet design in honor of Pedro Rodriguez, his third victory in his career means he now stands alone as the most successful Mexican driver in F1 history.
And convincingly, he is also just 15 points behind Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship … he couldn’t, could he?
Ferrari’s incompetence ensures that Leclerc’s Monaco curse continues
Well, at least Leclerc now has a Monaco Grand Prix final in his name, but he didn’t have to say he could – should – much more.
He may never have a better chance of winning his home race, especially if the principality loses its place on the calendar in the near future, and for much of this weekend Leclerc seemed destined for victory with one of the great performances. of Monaco. .
In recent years, the No. 16 Ferrari has often looked like a time bomb in qualifying conditions, destined to detonate the climax of Q3 in a glorious and explosive blur of controlled speed and aggression, but here Leclerc dared to to make nuclear.
His impressive last race of Q3 was four tenths above his previous lap when the red flag ended the session prematurely, cruelly handing over what would have been the last flower to another aspirant on The biggest lap ever. was.
However, Leclerc – his first attempt with enough comfort – had the pole and in Monaco this would be practically done most years.
But this is Charles Leclerc. In Monaco.
Leclerc did what he had to do in the first laps, negotiating the dirty conditions to build a comfortable advantage over his teammate Carlos Sainz, but one day final decisions were required, his side of the garage got stuck in a strategic no man’s land.
No doubt Ferrari was too slow to call Leclerc to switch from extreme wet to intermediate, and when he pitted back just three laps later for the slicks he had to queue behind Sainz.
Victory, then, was gone.
The turning point of the race … #MonacoGP # F1 pic.twitter.com/ZJQv8SzWlg
– Formula 1 (@ F1) May 29, 2022
After blowing up the 46-point lead over Verstappen after three rounds, it was widely considered a must-win race to win Leclerc’s title chances with upcoming events in Baku and Montreal favoring top speed. Red Bull straight end.
The parallels with the 2016 defeat of Daniel Ricciardo, another driver who was the class of the field in Monaco until his team’s mistake cost him the victory, are obvious.
However, Leclerc, who did not slow down in describing Ferrari’s handling of the race as a “mess”, must resist the temptation to oppose it, unlike Ricciardo, who never let Red Bull forget the day they let him down.
Now more than ever, Ferrari and Leclerc must be united.
Sainz’s intelligence and strength of character shine
The first few months of this season have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that in terms of gross speed and skill, Leclerc is simply at a different level from Sainz.
Although Leclerc has won twice to set the stage for a title challenge, Sainz, with an abrupt driving style defined by harsh interventions, has at times struggled to keep his car on track, crashing without elegance into Australia. , Imola and Miami.
He may not have the star quality and natural delicacy of his teammate, but Sainz’s intelligence and strength of character made him avoid the same fate as Leclerc in Monte Carlo.
The last Monaco GP to be affected by the rain was in 2016, with the permanent image of that Ricciardo race sitting helplessly in his pits while his Red Bull mechanics shuffled around his car looking for tires.
This communication error cost Ricciardo the victory over Lewis Hamilton, but an often overlooked element of Hamilton’s victory was his direct change from wet tires to extreme dry tires, which saved him from wasting time. ‘a transition stop for intermediates.
The optimal strategy for a drying track in Monaco was recorded that day, and the memories of that race were almost certain in Sainz’s mind when, as the temptation to try intermediates grew, he made Ferrari knew his intentions on lap 15.
“We’re going to dry directly,” he announced on the team’s radio.
In an almost typical way, Ferrari seemed to ignore him, as he was ordered to mediate two laps later, but still Sainz was impassive in his determination to stay out and convinced the team to trust him.
Ultimately, his one-stop shop made no difference in his position – he started and would finish P2 – but Sainz was convinced that he would have been celebrating his first Grand Prix victory in Monaco had it not been for Williams’ interference. of Nicholas Latifi on his return. .
“We kept patient on the wet, we made the right decision to go to the slicks and a vaulted car, a terrible lap stuck behind a vaulted car, cost me the victory today.” #MonacoGP # F1
– PlanetF1 (@ Planet_F1) May 29, 2022
Leclerc has shown Sainz the way home for most of 2022, but when it comes to reading a career, conditions, and questioning his own team’s decisions, maybe Carlos can still teach Charles one or two tricks.
Once on the road for Mercedes, as Russell holds the record for the top five
After finally breaking the code of the W13 in Barcelona, where the team considered that Hamilton would have been fighting for victory if it were not for a collision in the first round, Mercedes seemed to take a step back in Monaco.
He soon realized, however, that they were not suffering from an aerodynamic porpoise in the principality, but a different kind of rebound related to the height of the gait and the stiffness of the suspension.
After mixing it with the Red Bulls and Ferraris in Spain, Mercedes was overtaken by Lando Norris’ McLaren in Monte Carlo, although George Russell mimicked Sainz’s slip-wet strategy to overtake Norris and continue. his streak of finishing in the top five in each race. in 2022.
George Russell overtakes Lando Norris when the McLaren driver leaves the pits
The move took Russell to 5th place, which eventually saw him continue his streak of finishing in the top five 👏 #MonacoGP # F1 pic.twitter.com/aqHuJH9409
– Formula 1 (@ F1) May 29, 2022
Hamilton, meanwhile, seemed to be struggling a bit more with Mercedes’ limitations and found himself trapped behind Fernando Alonso after struggling earlier to find a way to beat Esteban Ocon’s other alpine.
A place with such unique demands, Monaco arrived at a bad time in the recovery of Mercedes from its bad start to the season and there is likely to be a more accurate representation of its progress as F1 returns to more expansive and conventional circuits. .
This, physically and metaphorically, was a blow to the road.
Schumacher’s incidents are testing Haas’ patience
Guenther Steiner has become accustomed to seeing his cars on the wall over the years. After all, this is a man who used to hire Romain Grosjean and Nikita Mazepin.
Accidents are simply part of the game, but what Steiner will not tolerate, especially in this time of budget constraints and with the reluctance of team owner Gene Haas to put his hand in his pocket at best , is that a car is “shattered” into pieces. on a regular basis.
Mick Schumacher’s long search for a first F1 point continued in Monaco where he lost control and crashed into the pool section on lap 27, ripping off the back of the car from the main chassis.
Schumacher: “I’m fine, I just don’t get it”
Thank God it’s okay! The gearbox came off the car. # F1 # Formula1 #MonacoGP pic.twitter.com/3fwgdIQYJR
– The F1 Magazine (@ thef1magazine) May 29, 2022
It was Schumacher’s second major incident of the season after his qualifying accident in Saudi Arabia. million dollars in repairs.
The …