Gary Anderson: Ferrari is self-destructive, Renault is all talk

The Monaco Grand Prix weekend showed Mercedes at its best, Ferrari continuing to struggle, and the progress made by Red Bull-Honda. It also laid bare the ongoing struggles of Renault, which admitted to the technical problems that have held it back since the start of the season.

Lewis Hamilton's victory was the sixth of the season for Mercedes, and the only real problem was that its run of one-twos came to an end thanks to Valtteri Bottas finishing 'only' third. Even with the tyre troubles, Mercedes is unstoppable at the moment.

When things are going for you, they really are going for you. When the safety car came out, Mercedes took a risk and put Hamilton and Bottas on the medium tyres. After a coming-together with Max Verstappen when leaving the pits, Bottas had to pit again and fit the hards, which the Red Bull driver and Sebastian Vettel were already running.

Hamilton spent the rest of the race complaining about the condition of his mediums, asking why they were fitted and pleading with the team to work some kind of miracle by giving him fresh rubber without losing track position.

But that track position is everything in Monaco and, although he was limping for over 60 laps, he held on to win. Verstappen put on as much pressure as he could but ended up second on the road - and fourth after a five-second unsafe release penalty was applied.

Charles Leclerc had a couple of skirmishes as he tried to make up a few places, but in the end his attempt to pass Nico Hulkenberg at Rascasse resulted in a right-rear puncture. The lap he spent on the rapidly disintegrating rubber more or less tore the floor off the car and he had to retire.

Vettel's second position was probably better than Ferrari deserved. This is turning out to be a season of self-destruction and the drivers need to take some of the responsibility for that. Vettel made yet another mistake and crashed at Ste Devote in FP3.

I know anyone can have an accident at Monaco, but during all the F1 practice sessions, qualifying sessions and the race no one else actually crashed. There were a few brushes with the Armco, but that's Monaco. Vettel, above all the drivers out there, should know you need to leave a small margin - especially in FP3, since the time to rebuild the car before qualifying is very limited. Fortunately the damage wasn't too serious.

You need someone on the pitwall calling the shots who knows which way the wind is blowing, has their eyes open and isn't worried about making a wrong call. Ferrari seems to be missing that person

Having missed the majority of FP3, Vettel struggled to get up to speed in Q1 but pitted late for a fresh set of soft tyres and on his last lap went fastest - only to knock out his team-mate.

Leclerc had missed the weighbridge on the way into the pits. The team had to push him back and get the car weighed, but there was still time to put a new set of boots on the car and get him out there. They chose not to. Rightly so, he was not a happy man.

It's the old saying, you need to be in it to win it. You might bin it trying and not get through, but when you did a 1m11.265s in FP3 and had only managed a 1m12.149s in Q1 you know you can do much better without too much risk. By sitting in the garage you can almost guarantee you're going to miss the cut.

As a team, Ferrari just doesn't seem to be able to respond to a situation. At Barcelona it took too long to make strategy and driver-position changes. Because of that, it potentially threw away a better result.

But what happened in Monaco makes those mistakes at Barcelona trivial. Ferrari has the tools and does its simulation to predict the cutoff times required, but the past has always taught me to question the result of any spreadsheet or simulation. They're only as good as the information you feed into them.

Monaco is a place where you need to start up front. If not, it is just a lottery. To achieve that, you need someone on the pitwall calling the shots who knows which way the wind is blowing, has their eyes open and isn't worried about the consequences of making a wrong call. Team principal Mattia Binotto admitted that they could have overruled the tools and that's what should have happened. But Ferrari seems to be missing that person, especially this year.

Behind Mercedes and Ferrari, there were four Honda-engined cars in the top eight. I have to say Honda is doing a great job this year, but more importantly for Honda this is a great result in both performance and reliability. It has really taken over as the third best power unit supplier - at the very least.

Honda-powered drivers in Monaco

4th: Verstappen, +5.5 seconds
5th: Gasly, +9.9s (with fastest lap)
7th: Kvyat, +54.6s
8th: Albon, 55.2s

Renault-powered drivers in Monaco

6th: Sainz, +53.4s
9th: Ricciardo, +60.9s
11th: Norris, + 66.8s
14th: Hulkenberg, +1 lap

After being on pole position in his Red Bull-Renault for two of the past three years and winning in 2018, Daniel Ricciardo's Monaco credentials cannot be questioned. Now he's driving for the works team we can see that Renault is still struggling - as it has been since these engine regulations came into play for '14. If it's not one thing it's another, and the latest problem in '19 has been with the conrods.

Conrods are the components that connect the crankshaft to the piston. Yes, they need to be light, they need to be stiff, and they need to be efficiently designed, but they have been in every engine since the year dot. The requirements for the conrods are well documented and a company like Renault should know that and be able to design within those requirements.

Renault has done far too much talking but not produced enough. Maybe bold statements are needed to keep big bosses happy, but it only creates the next date for it to be considered to have fallen short

The conrod is not one of the components that will turn an engine into a race-winning one, but get it wrong and for sure they can cost you a race - and in a spectacular way. It is the other components - the MGU-K, the MGU-H, the turbo sizing, the combustion design - that will turn an OK power unit package into a race-winning package. Those are the areas that, under these engine regulations, Renault has struggled with.

Every time it has introduced an upgrade to any of these components there has been some reason not to be able to use its full potential. Now Honda has had the time and motivation to improve its package, Renault on the power unit side has been left behind yet again.

Renault has done far too much talking and not produced enough action. It is now suggesting it will be right up there with Mercedes and Ferrari on engine performance at the French Grand Prix. Perhaps these statements are needed to keep the big bosses happy, but it only creates the next date for it to be considered to have fallen short.

Considering the Renault team as a unit - chassis and engine - it has to be said that after lots of bold winter statements about progress on both sides of the channel, things are not looking good for either.

As a works team, Renault took over a run-down Lotus effort at the end of 2015. If we look at the performance from '16-19 we can see that after initial progress Renault's supertime (its percentage deficit to the fastest car) has almost plateaued for the past three seasons. As a 'works team', that's a lot to claw back.

2019 - 102.084%
2018 - 102.137%
2017 - 102.186%
2016 - 103.238%

And as a team, Renault has been beaten by its customers. Until the end of 2018 it was Red Bull, but now it's McLaren.

To keep the parent company pumping the money into the project, the team needs to be showing the bean counters that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Renault has spent a lot of money on signing Daniel Riccardo, who has a proven race-winning record as opposed to Nico Hulkenberg, who is fast but yet to stand on the podium in F1.

So on the driver front, Renault has no excuses. Give Ricciardo and Hulkenberg the tools and they will bring in the results, but they're missing the tools at this point. If this happens for too much longer, the bean counters will really start to ask questions.

Alain Prost works with Renault as an executive advisor and is at every race. He must see what is going on and, with his experience, be in a position to advise. He is from the same era as, and drove alongside, Niki Lauda, who sadly passed away last week. Niki was to Mercedes what Alain is to Renault - do you think Niki would have stood back and allowed what is happening to happen? I don't think so.

Renault needs a much stronger management structure. Less talk and more action, and if you have them Renault needs to listen to people like Alain Prost.