Horner praises 'no panic' Ricciardo after MGU-K failure

Red Bull's Christian Horner could not lavish enough praise on Daniel Ricciardo following the Aussie's lights-to-flag win in Monaco, achieved despite a major engine set back.

Less than 20 laps into the 78-lap event, Ricciardo reported a sudden loss of power which the team immediately attributed to an MGU-K failure.

The situation appeared dire with the team's engineers predicting the leader's demise with a handful of laps, but a calm and composed Ricciardo continued his race unabated, multi-tasking at the wheel of the weakened RB14 as he managed the job at hand on several fronts.

"He just managed it like he was on a Sunday afternoon drive," a massively impressed Horner told Sky F1.

"They were telling me on the intercom 'We're going to have to retire the car in one or two laps', but I said we're in the lead of the Monaco Grand Prix, we're keeping going, moving the switches around, driving, saving fuel, saving brakes, saving tyres. He drove an unbelievable race this weekend!"

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Indeed the Red Bull team boss underlined the extent of what his driver had achieved.

"He'd lost about 25 percent of the power of the engine, and then, because of the way these engines work, his rear brake temperatures are going through the roof," added Horner.

"He's having to cool the brakes, cool the car, he's having to lift off to do that, he's got Sebastian Vettel breathing down his neck, he cannot make a mistake, he's dealing with all the stuff he has to manage and he totally nailed it.

"You can hear his composure in the car, when something goes wrong, there's no panic, no raise of voices, 'What can I do, what can I play with here'. He worked it out.

"I can't praise him enough for this victory, especially after 2016 when obviously it was a disastrous race for him. For him to win this Grand Prix today I'm really proud of him."

Asked if today's milestone win, achieved on Red Bull's 250th Grand Prix start, would help convince Ricciardo to commit to the Milton Keynes team for the future, Horner reiterated his desire to keep the Honey Badger on-board for 2019.

"I'm not sure whether his price has gone up or if his love for the team has gone up, probably both," said the Briton.

"I've made it clear all along that we want to keep Daniel. He's now won the same amount of races as Lewis and Sebastian in this championship, and obviously he could have done more in Bahrain and Baku.

"Still a long long way to go, and we've got a great racing car!"

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