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Alonso explains why he did not attack Stroll in home race
Fernando Alonso had undoubtedly hoped for more than a seventh place in his home Grand Prix. The Aston Martin driver came no further than P9 in qualifying a day earlier, which effectively ended his podium chances right from the start. To GPblog and others, he looked back on his race.
"At the beginning, we didn't have a plan, to be honest, because we were not sure about the degradation," said Alonso. The Spaniard started on softs and drove quite a few laps on the red tyre before going in for another set of softs. Lance Stroll was also on the move on that strategy, but all the other 18 drivers were not.
So why this choice? "On the first stint, George was so fast that when he overtook me, I think we changed our mind a little bit. We didn't want to run that close to the cars in front. We just tried to extend the first stint. And by doing so, we extended the second stint. We knew that our opportunity was in the last 15 laps of the race. But not enough to fight at the front, just to fight the midfield," Alonso said.
Alonso lets Stroll finish ahead of him
In the third and final stint, the 41-year-old Spaniard found himself on hard tyres, and on the white-cheeked rubber, the two-time world champion had a good pace. He quickly approached Stroll but made no serious attempt to overtake his teammate. Instead, Alonso announced over the team radio that Stroll did not need to fear a fight either, not exactly typical of Alonso.
"Yes, it was 10 laps to the end. I was with a little bit fresher tyres. But one or two-tenths faster than him, no more than that. And I will not get crazy. I damaged one floor yesterday, and I didn't want to damage another one today, or he damaged the floor or anything. I just tried to secure the place. For us, it's the same 6th and 7th and 7th and 6th," he explained.