Fernando Alonso wishes McLaren-Honda were less conservative in its strategy at the British Grand Prix, as he feels the team could have achieved more than 12th and 13th in a wet-to-dry race.
The Spaniard was amongst the cars that immediately pitted for intermediate tyres when the Safety Car came in. Alonso then stopped for slicks on lap 17, thus following a similar strategy to most of the field.
The double world champion was quickly on the radio to tell his team he was not impressed with the call.
“I think in these conditions we can go from hero to zero in nothing,” Alonso said afterwards. “You stop one lap earlier and you probably don’t finish the lap. I think we did what we can but I think we lost positions, the stops, so we need to look at this.”
“We could invent something. We are not fighting for the world championship, we could have stopped earlier or later, something to try and gain some positions but we were a bit slow to react on that. That is the way it is, these races are always very complicated.”
Alonso was involved in his fair share of battles on the cusp of the points-paying positions, fighting the likes of Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Williams’ Felipe Massa.
The 34-year-old also had a massive moment when he went off and spun several times at turn one. Given the limits of his current package, Alonso admits he has to try and do things differently in order to race the cars ahead.
“We are P12 and P13, so I don’t think we should be very proud of today’s race,” he added. “That is the way it is, we could have had some points with my car.
"When I was behind Felipe in dry conditions, it is difficult to overtake with the car we have at the moment so we have to invent some places, like turn one and turn two, which are not normal overtaking places.
“We went off there. It is difficult when you are battling with someone, [it is] better in qualifying when we are alone and can extract the maximum from the corners but a tough race.
“In a way, I think it was still a step forward, we were more competitive fighting with Williams, Force India and Toro Rosso in the race, so that is good news.”
RACE REPORT: Hamilton beats Rosberg and Verstappen in British GP
AS IT HAPPENED: British Grand Prix
FEATURE: Home sweet Home - Eric Silbermann on Silverstone
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