Disbelief of Red Bull's choice: 'Verstappen had everything to gain'

Charles Leclerc seemed well on his way to winning his home race for the first time in Monaco, but Ferrari denied him the chance of a perfect weekend through a strategic error. Formula One analyst Peter Windsor cannot understand Ferrari's strategy, but the same goes for the strategy Red Bull Racing chose for Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

The former sponsorship manager for Williams saw both Ferrari and Red Bull Racing play it safe by having their drivers change to intermediates first before calling them in for slicks. Only Carlos Sainz dared to skip that intermediate step, but had to repeatedly insist on it with his team.

Safe strategy proved costly

"We saw it with Charles Leclerc and we saw it with Max Verstappen," Windsor says in his analysis on his Youtube-channel. "These are two of the most talented drivers in the history of the sport. You don't want to say that these guys can't drive on intermediates in the rain, or on slicks when there's something of a dry line?"

Once on the indermediates, only a few laps were driven with that tyre before the drivers came in again for slicks, but both Leclerc and Verstappen had to wait for his teammate to do so.

"It was amazing," Windsor continues. He points out that Leclerc had everything to win by keeping his leading position and avoiding chaos in the first corner because of the rolling start, but Ferrari threw it away because of the chosen strategy.

Misunderstanding of choices by Ferrari and Red Bull

The analyst does not understand how it is possible that neither Ferrari nor Leclerc himself thought that it would be better to change to slicks immediately. "Carlos Sainz said it himself to his engineers. It was a logical choice," he continued.

"Max had everything to gain in this race. He has this amazing talent, why wouldn't Red Bull consider from the beginning to get him on slicks as soon as possible?" Instead, according to Windsor, the team chose the safe middle ground, which didn't get him the maximum result. The fact that Perez spent two fewer laps on the intermediates earned him the victory, according to Windsor.