Horner: Perez success in Monaco all about 'getting crossover right'

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner says Sergio Perez's success in Monaco was all about the team timing to perfection the Mexican's crossover in the chaotic race from the wet to the intermediate tyre.

Perez gained an upper hand over Ferrari leaders Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz by undercutting the pair during the race's first pit stop rotations.

Red Bull initiated the switches among the front runners on lap 17, and Perez found himself in command of proceedings five laps later after Ferrari miscalculated its strategy.

"It was an incredible race," said Horner. "We knew there was some rain around, but I don't think we expected it to be tropical, at the beginning of the race there.

"It was a little chaotic with the delays, tyres coming on the grid, off the grid, on the grid. But with the amount of rain that did fall, it would have been impossible to race in those conditions.

"So once the race finally did get underway, it was always going to be about the crossover, and getting that crossover right. And we went obviously, from the extremes, the inters, to the slicks, and we got those calls right today.

"And the pitwall did a great job, the strategists, particularly the guys in the pit lane, they had to turn around the double stops today and of course, Checo, his performance, on the in-lap, on the out-lap, particularly on the inter tyres, was stunning.

"And then likewise on the slicks, and then obviously he had to manage the rest of the end."

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Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer believes that Pierre Gasly's very early switch to intermediates provided some valuable information to Red Bull as it closely monitored the AlphaTauri driver's progress on the tyre and helped decide a timely crossover point.

"I think what actually maybe gave Red Bull this win was Gasly was making progress in the AlphaTauri in a sort of perverse way," Palmer said on the BBC Chequered Flag podcast.

"He showed you could overtake and it meant that everyone wanted to go for the Inters. Because Gasly pitted so early and, on the Inters, was way quicker than anyone else. So, immediately, everyone knows ‘OK, the Inters are quicker’."

While Red Bull's execution was flawless in Monaco, Horner conceded that his team had significantly benefitted from Ferrari's errors.

"Of course, we had to go out and win it. But we also capitalised on the mistakes that were made, the circumstances were the same for everybody and it was very tight between the two teams," he said.

"Charles in the early laps seemed to have things pretty much under control, he had a buffer of his teammate behind him as well.

"At that point in time, it looked like Ferrari had the race in the bag, but I think we just reacted very well to the conditions and got the crossovers right, the double pitstop, etcetera, etcetera, it worked very well for us.

"We were debating whether you go straight from the extreme on to the slick, as we saw with Lewis [Hamilton], when it hurt us a few years ago with Daniel [Ricciardo], but we decided it was a quicker route to go through the inter onto the slick.

"And the power of the out-lap was enormous. And I think Checo absolutely nailed it."

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