“There’s a lot going on”: Red Bull Insider makes the case against boring race allegations after Monaco GP

Red Bull's head of strategy, Will Courtney, claimed that there is a 'lot going on' even in uneventful races such as the 2024 Monaco GP. The race in the principality last weekend was a straightforward affair as the element of strategy and pitstops were negated by the Lap 1 red flag that allowed the drivers to change their tires.

The restart after the red flag was a procession as we only saw four overtakes for the next 77 laps around Monaco and the Top 10 finished in the exact starting position.

Speaking with Motorsport.nl, the Red Bull man spoke about the team preparing in the background for the various possible scenarios and how they could cover themselves off from their rivals. He said:

“Even if it seems like a fairly uninteresting race and is a straightforward one-stop race, there is still a lot going on behind the scenes. We are constantly talking to each other about what we will do if there is a safety car, what the weather will look like, and what the situation will be if we suddenly have to make a pit stop due to flat tire, for example."

"We always try to be one step ahead of everything, so that if something happens, we already know exactly how we will react to it and so we don't have to think about a decision until then.”

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen gives his take on the 'positive' things from Monaco GP

Max Verstappen stated that despite having an uneventful race in Monaco, the team learned a lot about its weakness on bouncier tracks.

Speaking with F1.com, the three-time world champion pointed out that the only positive from the race was that it brought out the flaws that needed to be worked on.

“I think the positive thing out of this weekend is that it really highlighted our weakness, and that’s what we have to work on,” Verstappen said.

Verstappen accepted that as a team "some tracks that are still upcoming won’t really be that good for us, but then also some tracks will be better for us". The Red Bull driver further mentioned that the lack of strategy was a 'shame' and added:

“For us, there was a lot of management to the end and that didn’t really make it enjoyable. No one really wanted to stress their tyres too much, because you know you can’t pass around here, so [it was] not really exciting. It’s a bit of a shame.”

The Monaco GP weekend was a disappointing one for the Red Bull F1 team as they could only manage to score eight points courtesy of Max Verstappen's P6 finish. The poor result allowed Ferrari to close the gap to the Austrian team to just 23 points behind after eight races.