Bernie Collins applauds Racing Bulls after Monaco GP mayhem

Former strategist-turned-Sky Sports pundit Bernie Collins has praised Racing Bulls after the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix. This comes after fans criticised the strategies employed by the likes of the Faenza-based team and Williams, with many labelling them as “manipulative” as their drivers slowed traffic to create buffers for their team-mates.

Last weekend saw the implementation of two mandatory pitstops during the race in the Principality. Added to shake up the Sunday with more potential strategy options available to teams, it resulted in a largely static race with only two passes throughout the whole of Sunday.

Instead, Racing Bulls used Liam Lawson to slow down the midfield pack, enabling his team-mate, Isack Hadjar, to exit a well-timed pitstop into clean air while maintaining a points-paying position. This resulted in the best finish yet for the Laurent Mekies-led team with Hadjar finishing sixth and Lawson eighth – a career best for both drivers.

“There was a lot of talk pre-race about how one team-mate could help another team-mate,” Collins said on the Sky Sports F1 Show. “I think there was a bit of talk around the Ferraris, around McLaren, and for those two, it’s very harsh because the second team-mate has still got good points on the board, so you don’t want to sacrifice one of those two.

“I think for RB, they did a really good job. They had pre-made the plan. I can’t emphasise enough how much work goes into Saturday night strategy and Sunday morning strategy in order to look at what all the permutations might be, why it might not work, what all the other drivers would do.

“And RB with Hadjar had this really good opportunity to score really good points, and they put all their eggs in that basket. They committed to the strategy, opened the pit gap very slowly because they had planned it from the beginning of the race.”

The Kiwi driver benefited from Williams, who decided to use a similar strategy with its drivers.

“Crofty’s talking to James Vowles on the pit wall — and their pit wall’s starting to think, ‘Ah, we can see what’s coming together here, now we can do this with our two cars to get the last point-scoring positions.’ And because Williams then opened the gap between their two drivers, it allowed Lawson not really to have any disadvantage for helping Hadjar out. So for RB, you know, they must have been rubbing their hands together when they’d seen Williams start to employ the same tactic, because suddenly it’s all come together.”

With the Grove outfit working quickly to open a gap for Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon came under immense pressure from Mercedes’ George Russell, who eventually shot past the Williams by cutting the Nouvelle Chicane in annoyance, resulting in a drive-through penalty.

Discussing the choice of strategy, the Thai-British driver wasn’t necessarily proud of the race he drove.

“It’s not really how we want to go racing. In the end it’s a tactical game and we had to make it work.

“The RB started it and we knew if they started it, we had to match it. It just makes this messy race. I could have brought a pillow in the car and a coffee and just chilled out a little bit.”