Fernando Alonso believes Aston Martin made the right call to switch him to Medium tyres during his initial pit stop, despite the downpour forcing him to switch to Intermediates the following lap. The pit stop happened when the conditions started to worsen, after drizzle soaked the middle sector and prompted calls to pit for Intermediate tyres. Drivers at the rear of the field led the switch to Intermediates, while Alonso chose to stay on dry tyres after the team believed that it would only be a short shower of rain. "For me, it was very clear that the track on the lap we stopped was completely dry, apart from Turn 7 and 8. It was completely dry for 99 percent of the track, so I stopped for dry tyres. "The weather forecast [said] it was small shower. We had a lot of margin behind us to put the dry tyres [on] and, if necessary, the Inter tyres." Those critical seconds spent in the pit lane sealed Alonso's fate, as the rain intensified across the entire circuit. "Maybe it was extra safe, I don't know. But that minute and a half that it took to go through Turns 5, 6, 7 and 8 again, it changed completely," he explained. "So the out-lap on the dry tyres, it was very wet when I go through those corners, but the lap that we stopped, it was completely dry."
Alonso: We decided to go all or nothing at start
Alonso was one of a few drivers to start on the Hard tyre for the alternate strategy, in an attempt to go longer on strategy. The team made the decision because he wanted to "go for all or nothing" for a victory, having already stood on the podium on four occasions so far this year. He added: "We knew that it was some downside that the strategy we could have ended up maybe P5, P6 or something like that, out of the podium. "But this morning, we discussed it and we said we’ve had couple of podiums this year so we go for all or nothing, we start on the Hard tyre. And we didn't have the pace."
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