Fernando Alonso thought his second place 'was gone' after losing out to Lewis Hamilton at the start of the Canadian Grand Prix. Even though his reaction times were similar to Hamilton's off the line, he appeared to accelerate a lot slower on the run into Turn 1. At that stage he thought the race would be about keeping George Russell and the Ferrari's behind for the final podium position, but a good stint on the Medium tyre at the start enabled him to regain the place back from Hamilton. "I think it has been a tough race from the beginning," Alonso told media. "When we lost a place at the start I thought that maybe that was already gone, P2, and I would have to concentrate on the guys behind, George and the Ferrari's maybe. "But then, yeah, we were able to overtake Lewis and we had a little bit more pace in that part of the race."
Alonso explains Hard tyre strategy
Aston Martin was the only team in the top three to make the switch to Hard tyres in their last stint, which left Alonso vulnerable to a charging Hamilton on Medium tyres at the end. Alonso was able to respond to his times, but also had to nurse a problem with his car towards the end which prevented him from chasing Max Verstappen for the race victory. The decision to go to Hard tyres in the final stint stemmed from the limited running on Friday, which was curtailed mostly by the red flags and e ffective cancellation of FP1 because of circuit CCTV issues . "We didn't have another Medium. That is something that you need to decide before qualifying," explained Alonso. "Sometimes you decide to go for one Medium, one Hard because you think it’s enough; sometimes two Hard, sometimes two Mediums. "Obviously with the very limited practice that we did on Friday, it was just a guess. I’m happy with the decision: for us the Hard was not a bad tyre at all and we were able to extend the stints, and in our car, it was a good tyre."
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