© Getty ImagesThe Highs and Lows of MonacoThe Monaco Grand Prix - the race everyone wants to win. Here’s the history of the Team in Monte Carlo.
Whenitcomestoprestige,youcan’ttoptheMonacoGrandPrix.It’sthetrophyeveryonewantsontheirmantelpiece.It’sconsideredoneofthegreatestracesintheworld.Infact,it’sonethirdofmotorracing’sTripleCrown(theothertwobeingtheIndianapolis500and24-HoursofLeMans).
This weekend’s race will be the 19th for the Bulls (missing out 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) and both Max and Checo will be looking to repeat their wins from the past. And it’s not just those two, every driver that has won a race for Oracle Red Bull Racing has won at Monaco for the Team. And there’s been plenty of other highs and strangely, not that many lows in the principality. Here they are…
In only the Team’s 26th Grand Prix start, they were awarded with their first ever podium courtesy of David Coulthard.
DC qualified in P7 and the Team elected for a one-stop strategy, which differed from the front runners. DC made his single stop on lap 29. Fuelled to the finish he re-joined in 12th place and slowly began to make his way forward. Cars that weren’t up to the task started to fall away. DC was running in P5 which became fourth when Honda’s Rubens Barrichello received a late-race drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. That pushed Renault’s Jarno Trulli to third behind Alonso and McLaren’s Juan Pablo Montoya, but with just over six laps from the chequered flag, Trulli suffered hydraulic failure pushing DC onto the podium. He famously went to the podium wearing his Superman cape. “I asked Prince Albert if he minded if I wore a Superman cape to celebrate,” said Coulthard. “He said ‘of course not’, so I am also the only driver in F1 history to wear a Superman cape on the podium in Monte Carlo.”
In those championship winning years of 2010 to 2013, the Bulls had a fantastic haul of trophies from Monte Carlo. In the four years of domination, Vettel and Webber collected six trophies, including three wins.
In 2010, Mark Webber collected the first winner’s trophy from Monaco for the Team, with teammate Sebastian Vettel coming home in P2. The following year it was Seb’s turn to take the chequered flag with Mark finishing P4. Mark won again in 2012 and the pair both stood on the podium in 2013, with Seb in P2 and Mark in third.
Daniel Ricciardo had plenty of success in Monaco during his time with the Team. He raced for the Bulls five times at Monte Carlo, but he just couldn’t get that win. He’d finished fifth (2015), third twice (2014 and ’17), and second in 2016.
In 2016 the Team’s strategy worked against him. He qualified in pole, but was unable to convert that into a win. It was looking as Monaco was going to escape him.
In 2018 he’d claimed pole again and was leading the race on the Sunday. However, on lap 28 Daniel was down on power in his RB14. It was an MGU-K failure, costing him 25% of his power and he could only use six out of the eight gears. With 50 laps still remaining Daniel had to nurse his car around the track, but thanks to dirty air and the narrowness of the circuit he was able to claim his first victory at Monaco. After the race he said: “On lap 28 I exited a corner and felt like I had no power. I wanted to close my eyes and start crying as I thought the race was over and I wondered just what I have to do to win here. On any other circuit, there was no way I would have won today. It wasn’t fun driving like that and I’m pretty exhausted, but very, very happy.”
The 2022 running of the Monaco Grand Prix was to start under the Safety Car due to rain. Checo was starting P3, behind Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. As the rain stopped and the track dried, Checo bit the bullet first and headed into the pits for intermediate tyres, dropping him to P5, but as the others pitted around him, he started moving up the ranks. When the time came to change to slicks, the Ferraris bit first and then Checo and Max covered them the following lap. Checo came out in the lead, the undercut had worked and from there he controlled the race to become the first Mexican driver to win the Monaco Grand Prix.
In the last three years, Max has won the Monaco Grand Prix twice. The first was a dramatic start. Charles Leclerc was on pole, but had crashed in the closing stages on Q3. Ferrari were unable to repair his car properly and he retired on the laps to grid. This left Max leading at lights out and he became the fourth Red Bull driver to win a Monaco Grand Prix.
Last year in the most dominant season ever, Max claimed his second Monaco Grand Prix in treacherous conditions to take a brilliantly worked win. Max finished almost half a minute ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso as he brutalised his medium tyres until the rain came down and he swapped to wets to dominate the last 20 laps and win in fine style.
Max and Checo return to the streets in Monaco this weekend. Free Practice One will kick off the weekend at 13:30 track time (11:30UTC). Make sure you keep coming back here for exclusive stories, videos, pictures and analysis.
