The headline is ironic, I know, given the Spanish Grand Prix, but hear me out – this article has run barely 20 words.
For the first time in the history of modern Formula One someone other than Lewis Hamilton is being reported as having had a rightful race victory cruelly robbed from him.
Hard to believe, absolutely, but it was Australia’s own Daniel Ricciardo who had the most to feel aggrieved for after the running of the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix.
And it wasn’t just the stunning first career pole position won on Saturday that had him feeling entitled to the winner’s trophy; Daniel had driven superbly not only all race weekend but all season, so much so that the full 25 points seemed inevitable at one point or another.
But it wasn’t to be around the streets of Monte Carlo.
Ricciardo did everything right – he led confidently, if easily, away from pole behind the safety car, pressed his advantage while Hamilton was corked behind Nico Rosberg’s lumbering sister Mercedes, and eked out the life of his wet tyres to guard against any weather eventuality.
On a weekend everything seemed to be clicking for Red Bull Racing, equipped with a beefed-up Renault power unit and arguably the grid’s best chassis, and a bit of mind-management should have been enough to reap the rewards.
Mercedes, however, had its game face on. Far from content at seeing Ricciardo stretch his advantage by almost one second per lap after 15 tours of the circuit, the German team ruthlessly switched the self-aware Rosberg in second with Hamilton, who went about slowly closing the gap.
The strategic tension bubbled away as drivers behind the leading duo switched from full wets to intermediates, but still Ricciardo and Hamilton persisted with the wets – which were redesigned by Pirelli for 2016 and offering more grip than would otherwise be expected – and this is where the grand prix began unravelling for Red Bull Racing.
The 2010-13 world championship team pulled Ricciardo in to follow the trend of all cars behind him bar Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein, sacrificing track position. The gamble was based on Ricciardo’s pace on the intermediate overwhelming Hamilton on worn wets but ignored than by lap 24 the track was agonisingly close to dry enough for slick tyres.
In effect Red Bull Racing had committed Daniel Ricciardo, already known for his ability to manage his tyres in the well-balanced RB12, to an additional stop over Hamilton. The decision for Mercedes was obvious, and Hamilton stayed out on his apparently invincible blue-walled wets.
Mercedes and Red Bull Racing dared each other to blink first, but Lewis Hamilton was ready to take the risk. On lap 31 the Briton switched, and Ricciardo came in one lap later.
Despite Mercedes theoretically getting a jump on its competitor with an undercut, sizzling in and out-laps by Ricciardo compared to sloppy ones put in by Hamilton earnt the Australian enough time in hand to convert his stop into track position – but the well-publicised strategic blunder on his team’s part undid salvage job.
“Based on how we are set up here in Monaco, the pit wall is upstairs and the garage is downstairs,” explained team principal Christian Horner. “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.”
“They couldn’t be got to the car in time, which cost probably about ten seconds in the stop.”
But it was Daniel Ricciardo who more succinctly explained why his strategy hadn’t worked.
“We were quick in the wet, we had a comfortable lead, pitted for inters, got stuck behind Lewis and we just effectively put ourselves in a race we didn’t need to be into,” he said after the grand prix.
“Two weekends in a row I’ve been screwed now. It sucks.”
Not only was it two weekends in a row that Ricciardo had to swallow his pride, it was two weeks in a row that Red Bull Racing, the undisputed champion of the race track mere years ago, threw away a near guaranteed victory by gambling on a riskier strategy. In Barcelona the team lucked into Max Verstappen sailing a steady course home ahead of Kimi Räikkönen, but in Monaco no such second chances presented themselves.
What’s more, clearly no lesson had been learnt in Barcelona that on circuits around which overtaking is difficult, track position is king.
“I think I took Barcelona on the chin and then took it well, but two in a row now – and it’s not like we’re in Mercedes’s position, we’re not able to win a race, so to have an opportunity to lead two races in a row and especially here in Monaco.
“I’m not sure where to go from here, what to do. Obviously they’ve got to understand what’s going on and learn from it but this win I’ll never get back, that’s a fact.”
The stinging final words of Daniel Ricciardo on the race he should have won – and in them the increasingly valid question. After twice being placed at centre stage and twice fluffing its lines, after 24 months in the championship wilderness has Red Bull Racing forgotten how to win?
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