Fernando Alonso vented his frustration at Aston Martin’s strategy at the British Grand Prix, saying the notion that it is Formula 1 drivers who make decisions in bad weather is “bulls**t”.
The Spaniard started the race at Silverstone seventh and finished eighth, having been leapfrogged by team-mate Lance Stroll, who finished seventh having started 18th.
Stroll and Alonso’s strategies were quite contrasting; the Canadian pitting early during the Virtual Safety Car period, which enabled him to jump through the order, as other drivers began to struggle on the Intermediates on which they started.
He then reacted quickly to pit just four laps later, Lap 10, as the rain began to fall once again.
Alonso, however, pitted a lap later than this, which saw him drop back. He would pit for slicks on Lap 37, which on this occasion was too early.
After the race, Alonso said the team had missed a big chance to score higher – Stroll was even on for a podium at one stage – and conveyed his bewilderment that decisions made on his team-mate’s side of the garage seem to be more effective.
“It was a very hard race to execute, and for us, it ended up being a missed opportunity,” he told DAZN.
“I’m not happy, obviously. We started seventh and finished ninth – we executed something badly.
“Usually in these kinds of situations, his [Stroll] side of the garage tends to be more accurate. They did well.
“In fact, Lance pitted twice before I even made my first stop, which put him up in third.
“That’s why sometimes I find it hard to understand, because we have another car giving us information, and if that car is in third place, I don’t know how we can’t use that information from our side of the garage. It’s in-house.”
Alonso frustrated by lack of information
Alonso indicated that the stops were team calls, and with those on the pit wall able to see everything around him in the race better than he can, he has no choice but to heed the advice.
“I have the experience, but I don’t have the data,” said Alonso. “When they call me to pit, I pit. I can feed back the track conditions, but I cannot do much more than that.
“Whoever says that the driver makes [the decisions in] these conditions and wins the races, it’s bulls**t.”
Alonso said the decision to pit too early for slicks was made by the belief his Intermediates’ heat was diminishing, but ultimately, it cost him almost half a minute.
“This is just a data-driven race with all the parameters we have in the car. I think the first stop was difficult to read, I understand that,” he added.
“I think [Lewis] Hamilton, [George] Russell, [Pierre] Gasly, Carlos [Sainz], myself, we all stopped on one lap.
“Obviously, we were P5, P6, P7, so it’s very difficult to gamble in that moment of the race.
“But we exited behind Esteban [Ocon], Lance, Nico [Hulkenberg], a lot of cars that made a better call on the first stop. And then the second [stop]… I was the first one to pit for dry.
“The team thought that the Inter tyre was losing temperature on the surface and it was the moment to pit. And I lost like 25 seconds again, so yeah, it was frustrating.”
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