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 pit stops were no longer required, allowing for the possib💖ility of teams to run u🐠ntil the end of the race.

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

Russell was told to manage his pace throughout tꦓhe early stages before pushing lat♊er on after he successfully retained track position over Verstappen following the Dutchman’s pit stop.

After the fourth race of the season in Japan, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff declared that the title race was already over. After Sunday’s result, Verstappen holds a&nb�🔴�sp; 31-point advantage in the championship.

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

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

“I didn’t really understand M🌞ercedes ra🅷ce 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 ov🤡ertake anybody, it was just a ve𒈔ry defeatist race to try and defend fifth.”

Horner al🐬so downplayed comments made by a frustrated Verstappen throughout the Monaco weekend.

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

“There wa꧋s 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 i💎nto spending the time with the engineers yesterday evening. There's no silver bullet, it's just ♏about working hard and understanding it.”

Commenting on his race, Russell said: ”It was a long, old race, a strange race♎. The first 30 laps we𓆉 were tootling around.

"When Max ♕pitted I put my foot down and it was only afterwards I realised how much we closed the gap on the Ferrari and McLarens. I was really pleased about that.

"Max put me under a bit of pressu꧟re but it was pretty under contr🐷ol.

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