Sebastian Vettel has said that race-winner Daniel Ricciardo was always controlling the pace in the Formula 1 2018 Monaco Grand Prix, despite nursing his ailing Red Bull.
Vettel started and finished in second position and was never able to take the fight to pole-sitter Ricciardo around the tight roads of Monte-Carlo, which are notorious for making it difficult to overtake.
Ricciardo suffered an energy recovery system problem which led to a significant loss of power in the early stages of the race, but never really came under threat from the Ferrari behind.
‘I saw [Ricciardo’s] issue and I was also told by radio and that’s when I started to push,’ explained Vettel. ‘But as soon as I got too close, or closer, then I struggled to stay there and never got in range, especially at the exit of the tunnel.
‘Obviously if you get closer it doesn’t help with your tyres. In some corners you don’t really need power and Ricciardo was quicker than us. He was always able to open the gap and I was never really there.
‘He could keep his pace and I think that perhaps it could have been worse for us if he hadn’t had some issues.
“Unfortunately, there weren’t many chances to do something different. I think it was tricky for us to make the tyres work the right way.’
Vettel struggled with heavy tyre degradation, as did many of the front-runners.
“Mercedes were in a similar position to us, even though they were on the harder, supposed-to-be-more-robust tyre, and Daniel said he had no problems at all.
‘So obviously, it made it difficult in the low-speed corners where you don’t need power, you need grip to stay with him and then benefit from the more power that we had clearly in the straights, but we couldn’t.’
