Daniel Ricciardo finally put the demons of 2016 to rest as he overcame a near race-long engine problem to claim victory at the Monaco GP on Sunday.
The Red Bull driver maintained the lead into Sainte Devote at the start but suffered a loss of power as his MGU-K failed around lap 18 meaning he was running solely on the V6 turbo for around 60 laps.
Ricciardo’s pace through the corners and better tyre maintenance gave him enough to keep Sebastian Vettel at bay though, and he would win his second Grand Prix of the season at his team’s 250th race.
In what was one of the strangest races in quite some time, all of the top four drivers lacked pace such was the amount of graining on both the Hyper and Ultrasoft tyres, although Ricciardo’s speed was largely dictated by being some 20kph slower down the straights.
Valtteri Bottas, who switched to the Supersoft at his one and only pit-stop, was arguably the quickest of the leaders but in P5 and would have been set for victory if those ahead pitted again.
Instead, he spent much of the afternoon tucked up behind Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton, with the Briton going on to complete the podium in third with the Ferrari driver fourth.
The pace was so slow at the front, Esteban Ocon, who slipped to almost 20 seconds back in the first 15 or so laps, was able to close that gap to those ahead and would maintain his ‘best of the rest’ status from qualifying in P6 for Force India.
There would be quite the queue behind him too as Pierre Gasly produced a strong drive to take seventh for Toro Rosso just in front of the hard-charging duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Max Verstappen as the Dutchman had his best performance of the season climbing up from the back of the grid to ninth.
His final victim would be Carlos Sainz, the man potentially joining him at Red Bull should Ricciardo leave for 2019, and the Spaniard enjoyed a feisty battle on his used Ultrasoft tyres versus the 20-year-old on newer Hypersofts but ultimately he would drop down to P10 in the Renault.
In what was a largely processional race around the streets of Monte Carlo, there were still some heartbreak stories including for Charles Leclerc in his first home race as the Sauber driver suffered brake failure exiting the tunnel and smashed into the back of Brendon Hartley just seven laps from the end.
The two Williams drivers also had a miserable afternoon with Sergey Sirotkin picking up a 10-second stop/go penalty for his tyres not being fitted at the three-minute signal before the start.
Moments after he served it, teammate Lance Stroll would pick up a puncture after touching the back of Marcus Ericsson leaving both men at the tail at the field.
Finally, Fernando Alonso, in his first Monaco race in two years after competing at Indianapolis in 2017, was forced into retirement with gearbox problems in his McLaren.
The full result can be seen below:
