Red Bull admit Vettel strategy was accidental

MONTE CARLO, Monaco, May 29, 2011 (AFP) - Red Bull have revealed that Sebastian Vettel's one-stop strategy at Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix was a fluke caused by the wrong tyres being put on his car when he made his pit-stop.

Vettel led the early stages of the race before the team called him to pit in reaction to Briton Jenson Button's early 15th-lap pit-stop for McLaren.

The team had planned to keep Vettel on 'super-soft' but fast-wearing rubber tyres for his second stint, but a communications problem resulted in him mistakenly being given the so-called ordinary 'prime' or soft tyres.

Vettel then performed a small miracle in keeping those tyres fresh until the closing stages when, luckily, the race was red-flagged and suspended -- and the team had an opportunity to change his tyres again.

Team chief Christian Horner said: "It was a communication problem where the radio got jammed.

"Our plan was to box both the drivers on that lap, but unfortunately the radio got jammed so the guys in the garage did not get the call. They didn't know what tyres they were supposed to be putting on the car."

"In the end, a set of primes went onto Seb's car -- and that wasn't the plan! "We were going to stick a set of options (super-soft) on to cover Jenson, but in the end, we said, 'OK, this isn't a disaster -- we need to engineer our way out of it.'

"And after a bit of number-crunching, we managed to get our way out of it."

Horner added: "For me, it was a world champion's drive today. He soaked up the pressure, he focused on his efforts, and he was lucky with the accident that happened ahead of him not to get collected.

"When the race stopped, he had a reprieve to get a new set of options until the end of the race, but I think even without that he would have won."