Win or bust for Ricciardo in Monaco

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has admitted that he was prepared for the prospect of allowing Daniel Ricciardo's engine to fail completely during the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday if it meant giving his driver the opportunity to maintain his position from pole to claim the flag.

Ricciardo was imperious in the first portion of the race, having led from the start after ensuring pole from qualifying on the Saturday, but things turned sour when he reported a lack of power of the Red Bull team radio.

Sebastian Vettel in behind sniffed blood and looked poised to take advantage of the engine failings of the race leader in order to sneak ahead, but Ricciardo somehow managed to keep the four-time world champion at bay.

Horner revealed that there were whispers in the pit about Ricciardo perhaps retiring from the race, but the Red Bull team boss was not giving to give up P1 - even if it ran the risk of a complete engine failure.

"He reported a sudden loss of power, and the engine guys could see from the data that the MGU-K had stopped completely," said Horner.

"At that point there was talk in the background of retiring the car. With the potential damage with the MGU–K, it can go into the [combustion] engine and then it's a whole load of other problems.

"My position was 'we're leading the Monaco Grand Prix, we'll run until this engine stops'."

The MGU-K emerged as the problem for Ricciardo, with its purpose to harness energy when the car is breaking. When it falters, it can put significant pressure on the brakes, and Horner even confessed that the brake system was "not far off being on fire".

Horner provided some insight as to how his driver was able to perform an on-track balancing act to counter the failing MGU-K.

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"There were three laps where he pushed really hard in the corners because he was nervous about how slow he was at the end of the straights," he continued.

"We just left him alone for a few laps to find a rhythm. He has all the brake temperatures and warnings that he can see on the dash, so he was just trying to get those under control.

"You could hear he was asking for a lot of information about Max's tyres, how they were lasting, which was the tyre that gave up first; he was asking about [Nico] Hulkenberg, how far did his tyres go [in the opening stint.

"He also had the capacity to be thinking about the global picture."

Two years ago, Ricciardo saw a potential winning place at Monaco go up in smoke due to a botched pit-stop, but Horner thinks the "focused" Australian can now put that disappointment behind him.

"It was important for him to keep his cool, keep track position, don't kill the tyres, don't kill the brakes, don't kill the engine, and bring it home," the Red Bull boss insisted.

"Monaco's special for any driver, but that put heightened emphasis on this race because of the disappointment of two years ago.

"It was great that he was able to make up for that."