Following Max Verstappen's convincing victory at the Monaco Grand Prix, Christian Horner revealed that the Red Bull team had feared an undercut during the wet-weather pit stops. With weather conditions worsening partway through the Monaco race, drivers gradually starting pitting for Intermediate tyres. Second-placed Fernando Alonso pitted before Verstappen, but made the switch from Hard tyres to Mediums, which turned out to be the wrong decision as conditions continued to deteriorate. Verstappen pitted one lap later after surviving a very slow lap and contact with the barrier, and made the correct call to switch to Intermediates. With Alonso showing strong pace after the pit stops, a correct switch to Intermediates might have brought a closer contest with the lead Red Bull.
When asked about how Red Bull tried to decide the correct moment to make the tyre switch, Horner admitted that the team thought the decision was perhaps made too late. "It's about the engineer working with the driver trying to get the crossover, and it felt like maybe we're going a lap too long before going on to the Inters," Horner told Sky Sports F1 . "Had Fernando pitted for the Inters, it would have been much tighter and put more pressure on our pit stop. But, thankfully, he took the slick tyre just as the rain was coming. So, at that point, it's like, 'Max don't take any risks, just get it to the pits'. "As the lead car, you can only lose, you've nothing to gain, and you've just got to try and work with the conditions. "We've got spotters out there, we're trying to look at the radar, you're stuck in an office effectively and you can't look up at what the weather's doing, you're looking at the crowd, are they putting their umbrellas up, that kind of thing. "But of course, the driver has the best knowledge of what's going on in the circuit."
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