Pierre Gasly says he was left "disappointed and confused" by his Alpine team's decision to call him in for a fresh set of slicks just as the threat of rain was looming larger in Monaco.
The French outfit opted to hedge its bets by starting Gasly on Pirelli's hard tyre while teammate Esteban Ocon, who went on to finish third, was shod with the medium compound.
Gasly held his own in seventh place during the first 30 laps of the 78-lap race and then moved up the order as those running like his teammate on the medium rubber undertook their pitstops.
However, although he expected to extend his stint, the Frenchman was called in on lap 47, a few laps before light rain began to fall over Mirabeau.
He was then called back on lap 54 for a switch to inters when conditions worsened, eventually concluding his afternoon P7 in the pecking order.
©Alpine
Gasly reckoned that better execution by his team would have perhaps landed him a fourth-place finish at the checkered flag, just behind Ocon.
"I must say on my race I'm disappointed and confused because when we're running P3 and I'm going green and we know the rain is coming, I was in the perfect position to just stay long," he reasoned.
"I called on the radio, I wanted to stay long and benefit from the conditions. And then we boxed, and two laps later the rain came.
"We need to review why we boxed, because there was P3 and P4 on the table for the team, and it would have been a couple more points.
"But once again I don't want to share too much frustration, it's still a beautiful day for the whole team with the podium but we have a couple of things to improve, and we'll do it for next time."
Gasly admitted that the challenging conditions in the last third of the race were a handful at times.
"It was exciting," he said. "A couple of big moments, I must say the grip was extremely low. Poor visibility, blue flags, I needed to go between cars and debris here and there.
"The paint [and] a couple of pedestrian crossings were horrendous, so even in fifth gear you had wheelspin up the hill. It was very tricky, but kind of reminded me from last year at the start of the race. It was fun.
"I think there was one lap where coming down to Turn 5 it was like 'something bad is going to happen'. It was depending on the part of the track, some areas were drying, and had dry patches, and some others were very, very wet.
"I think we did the best job we could, splitting the two Ferraris, but there were at least three positions we could have got with a better call.
"But we'll review that and still a very positive day for the team in terms of performance, the best performance we've shown all year so hopefully we can build up from there."
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