Celebration time for Verstappen and Oracle Red Bull Racing at Monaco Grand Prix

Oracle Red Bull Racing driver and current F1 World Champion, Max Verstappen won the Monaco Grand Prix today thanks to a cool-headed drive along the tight streets of casino city Monte Carlo.

It’s a win which moves him 39 points clear of his nearest challenger – teammate Sergio Perez, who had a Grand Prix to forget as he finished in 16th place; albeit an improvement over his grid starting position of 20.

That’s Monaco!

Speaking after Sunday’s race, Verstappen was delighted with another momentous Monaco win.

“It’s super nice to win here again in Monaco! It was actually quite a difficult race, we were on the medium to begin with and Fernando on the hard compound, so we didn’t want the first stint to be that long but we had to stay out. The rain also made it quite complicated, we made the call for inters, the first few laps on them were incredibly slippery.”

The Dutch driver added: “I clipped the walls a few times again, but that’s Monaco! When you are that far in the lead, you don’t want to push that hard but also you don’t want to loose too much time. We managed to stay calm and bring it home and we scored a good amount of points for the Team. I of course will celebrate this evening with my friends and family but tomorrow we focus on Spain.”

Perez

Teammate Sergio Perez stated that it was a weekend to forget, and but he will move on now and look ahead to the coming races.

“It was the worst weekend I can remember in a while; everything went wrong and today we paid the price for a poor mistake from myself in qualifying. I am really sad about the performance, not just today but the whole weekend. I knew yesterday would be extremely costly and ultimately it was 25 points. The conditions were tricky out there and there was some hope that when it started raining we could get things right but we didn’t, it was a shame.

“I don’t think there was much we could have done differently; all the damage was done yesterday. I only want to move on from this race because it was a terrible weekend. I still have hope in the Championship but I know I cannot afford another zero in a race, so I really hope I can be back to my normal level in Barcelona. I need to be perfect in the next few races, I need to get victories and get them soon. I am happy we are racing in a few days.”

Special

Oracle Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner thanked the whole team for there efforts during the weekend and beyond.

“Winning here is special, it always means just that little bit more, every driver wants this one on their CV. And for us it’s our third in a row for the Team and our seventh in total here in Monaco. We knew coming into this weekend that this would be our biggest challenge of the season so far and Monaco threw everything at Max today. He managed the medium tyre and then the changing conditions well, made the switch to the intermediate tyre and saw it home. Another fantastic drive.”

In reference to Sergio Perez, Horner said the Mexican driver will learn from the weekend and now refocus on Spain next weekend.

“Unfortunately, it was a difficult weekend for Checo. Despite his best efforts, there was very little he could do after yesterday’s qualifying. Knowing Checo though, he will learn from his mistakes and   respond quickly in Spain. What we are seeing here at track though is just the shop window to everything that is happening on a daily basis back at the factory. The win here today is representative of the performance and dedication by the Team as an overall on a wider scale. A brilliant win with many lessons but one we will certainly savour.”