Horner thankful for Aston Martin mistake: 'Reduced pressure on pit stop'

Horner says they were very curious as to what strategy Alonso started on. "Nervous from the moment the red light came on when they pull the [tyre] covers off and you can see a lot on the hard tyres. I thought, 'okay there's rain around and they can go far enough if the mediums degrade'. The first thing was to cover the start, and Max did that. We tried to build a gap and get a safety car window. Then it was just hanging it out to see what the weather does," Horner told Sky Sports.

Then it was making sure the timing of the pit stop from slicks to intermediates was right. "It's about the engineer working with the driver, maybe we went a lap too long before going onto the inter, and if Alonso had picked the inter, it would've been much tighter and put more pressure on our pit stop."

However, Alonso opted (due to miscommunication) for slicks. "Thankfully, he took the slick tyre and at that point, it's like Max don't take any risks, get to the pits. When you're the lead car you can only lose. You have to work with the conditions, we have spotters and we have the radar. The driver has the best knowledge." 

Disappointing race for Perez

Sergio Perez had to come from last place and ultimately failed to finish in the points. He went in after lap one and got the hard tyres screwed under his RB19. For a moment, something seemed possible, but the Mexican ran into a traffic jam.

"Yeah, it was a tough weekend for Checo.  I mean, it all went wrong yesterday. And I mean, the first few laps, we tried a really aggressive strategy, a stop on the first lap.  And he got back within a pit window of, you know, Ocon would have pitted behind him.  But then the slower cars, he started to fall back.  And then obviously got caught up in a bit of a battle.  He did some damage to the front wing, so we needed to do another stop. So no points for him today.  But he'll be back in Barcelona," Horner told Viaplay.