Red Bull explain reason for costly Ricciardo pit blunder

Red Bull boss Christian Horner explained the reasons behind the pit blunder that cost Daniel Ricciardo victory at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Ricciardo was on track for his first win at the famous race before a mis-communication led to the Australian being stationary in the pits for too long.

Red Bull made a late decision to put Ricciardo on used supersofts instead of new softs, but the team did not have the tyres ready in time.

The long pit stop meant Ricciardo lost out on track position to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, and he was unable to get past the Brit in the second half of the race, going on to finish in second.

Horner explained what happened, saying: “Based on how we are set up here in Monaco, the pit wall is upstairs and the garage is downstairs.

“The tyres are on heat both in the garage and behind the garage, and unfortunately the set of tyres that were called for were not readily to hand, and were at the back of the garage.

“There was a scramble with the mechanics, originally having the soft tyre ready, the yellow tyre. And when that change [to supersoft] was requested to go through, those tyres were actually right at the back of the garage.

“They couldn’t be got to the car in time, which cost probably about 10 seconds in the stop.

“But even despite that delay, they came out alongside each other, showing how quick Daniel’s in-lap had been and how slow Lewis’ out-lap had been.

“So it was gutting for the whole team to lose a victory like that.”