Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has taken a swipe at Mercedes’ strategy at the F1 Monaco Grand Prix, describing it as “defeatist”.

After an early red flag enabled drivers to change their tyres, mandatory p😼it stops were no longer required, allowing for the possibility of teams to run until the end of the race.

Most of the field did, including Mercedes’ 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:George Russell, who finished fifth and one place ahead of Red Bull’s 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Max Verstappen, who was one of the few who pitted.

Russell was told to manജage his pace throughout the early stages before pushing later on after he successfully retained track position over Verst🐲appen following the Dutchman’s pit stop.

After the fourth race of the season in Japan, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff declared tᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚhat the title race was already over. After Sunday’s result, Verstappen holds a  31-point advantage in the chꦫampionship.

Asked if he thinks Wolff had been too ✃quick to suggest that Verstappen already had the title wrapped up, and if he can yet b꧙e challenged, Horner replied: “Yeah, I think so. Perhaps not with Mercedes.

“But I think with Ferrari and McLaren certainly ཧlook competitive, they cannot be discounted. It’s a long, long championshi𓆏p and obviously they’ve taken a reasonable chunk of points today.

“I didn’t really 🍌understand Mercedes race today, it was a hugely conservative race by George, to give up so much time and then go so fast at the end of the race, it didn’t really make a lot of sense.

"But I don’t think it would’ve changed…they weren’t going to overtake anybody, it was🌠 just a very defeatist race to try and defend fifth.”

Horner a🌠lso downplayed comments made by a frustrateওd Verstappen throughout the Monaco weekend.

“Listen to Max's comments🌳 over the last 10 years. He's✱ just very direct, he's very forthright and it just focuses everyone,” he said.

“There was a very good debrief yesterday, following qualifying were we really dug into right,🐻 what exactly is the sensation from the driver. 

“He put a big effort into spending the time with the engineers yesterday evening﷽. There's no silver bullet, it's just about worki꧑ng hard and understanding it.”

Commenting on his race, Russell said: ”It was a lon⭕g, old race, a strange raceꦕ. The first 30 laps we were tootling around.

"When Max pitted I p🍸ut my foot down and it was only afterwards I realised how much we cl🍌osed the gap on the Ferrari and McLarens. I was really pleased about that.

"Max put me under a bit of p🌸ressure but it was pretty under control.

"When the red flag came out, it was frustrating for everybody. The only hope of a good race in Monaco was a bit of spicin🥂ess with strategy💝 but then strategy was out of the window. We got the maximum we could."