2021 Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix highlights

Pierre Gasly

It was a pretty long race and obviously with Lewis behind it wasn’t easy, I couldn’t make any mistakes and just had to focus on my own race ahead, but I really enjoyed it. Finishing P6 today is good, I think we can be happy with that result and it’s the best performance of the season so far. The car felt really good in the first stint but once we put the Hards on we really struggled, and it made it pretty difficult on a couple of occasions with Lewis but I’m happy we managed to keep him behind.

I believe we took the right strategy today, we had to cover ourselves with Lewis’ pitstop, but it didn’t quite work out. It was very tight between Seb and me going up the hill, I was quite surprised to see him and there was maybe just a finger between our tyres, but it was great racing. The car performed well today, even if I think we could have achieved more and there are definitely some areas we still need to improve in compared to some of the cars we’re fighting against.

I’m still pleased with this result though, it was important for us to be back up near the front and getting some big points again was great for the team

Yuki Tsunoda

Starting from P16 we knew it wouldn’t be easy. I struggled for grip in the first lap compared to other cars around me and we lost a few positions, after that I was constantly behind cars, despite having a strong pace, so wasn’t able to make my way forward. The main thing for me is my Qualifying performance and how I can improve this. I’m going to work hard ahead of the next race so that we can hopefully be in a point-scoring position next time out.

Jody Egginton – Technical Director 

Leaving Monaco with points is obviously good. However, we’re slightly disappointed that it’s not more! Sebastian managed to sneak in front of Pierre at the pitstop, which is quite frustrating for us, as he’d had a solid opening stint, but this is something we can go away and review as a team.

Yuki’s race was fairly uneventful, given his Qualifying position it was clear his race would be heavily influenced by traffic, we tried to do something with the strategy during the race, but it was fairly straightforward so what we could do was limited. He drove a clean race with no mistakes and for sure has picked up experience which he will put to good use going forward. The package has performed reasonably well here and although the next races are quite different the expectation is that we can also be competitive in the upcoming Grands Prix.

Franz Tost – Team Principal

Congratulations to Red Bull Racing, Max Verstappen and Honda for this fantastic victory here in Monaco. It was also nice to see spectators here in the grandstands, which added a good atmosphere for the race. Pierre started the race from the sixth position and had a good start, defending well against Hamilton and managed his tyres in a very professional way.

We called him in for the pitstop on to the Hards and even if we struggled while bringing them to the right window, he could defend well against Hamilton. As for Yuki, he’s never competed here in any other category, so this was his first race in Monaco, a track which is of course quite a difficult one to learn in a Formula 1 car. After showing a very good performance in FP1 he had a small accident in FP2, but he could continue to grow his confidence around the track during the Saturday morning session.

Qualifying was more difficult for him, he lost some time with the weighbridge and wasn’t able to complete an additional lap, which meant he just missed out on Q2 by a small margin. Today he had a clean race and I’m sure he has gained a lot of experience here in Monaco, which will help him in the future. It’s good that we finished P6 as now we’re back where we started the season and I hope that we can have similar performances in the upcoming races.”

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