Mike Krack laments dodgy radar after Fernando Alonso strategy botch

阿斯顿·马丁校长迈克布莱恩已经进行了辩护thinking behind the team’s strategy call in Monaco which saw Fernando Alonso miss a potential golden opportunity to pressurise race winner Max Verstappen.

When the rain began to fall in the second half of the Monaco race, initially drivers attempted to tiptoe through the worst-affected section around Mirabeau and stay on the dry tyres.

The rain though would soon spread across the circuit, taking that option off the table, and that spelt bad news for Alonso who shortly before the rain started, had pitted to swap his hard tyres for mediums, having been set to run the alternate strategy to leader Verstappen.

Krack would explain that the call was not “a gamble”, rather their radar had said that no rain was coming, and so they reacted accordingly.

“We thought it was only a short shower, our radar was not very good because we did not expect any actually,” Krack told F1TV. “And then it came and it came much, much more than we were anticipating.

“So we had to come in because the hard tyres, they had already a lot of laps on them and they were starting to cool down, and then you really are just sliding. So we knew we had to come in.

“At this point, in here it was not raining yet, or very small drizzle and because also with the high ground temperature it would dry up quickly again, so we decided to fit the mediums.

“As soon as Fernando had left it started to come really heavy here and we had to come in unfortunately.

“But it wasn’t a gamble, it was just from the decision making and it was not correct.”

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Verstappen ultimately went on to win the Monaco Grand Prix with an advantage of 28 seconds over Alonso, and even with that missed opportunity when the rain set in, Krack doubted that Verstappen was really there for the taking.

“In hindsight, I think it would not have changed much to be honest,” he added. “Max was strong today.”

It was still a fantastic outing for Alonso, who by claiming P2 secured his best result yet in Aston Martin colours, thus closing the gap to Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, a position ahead in P2 in theDrivers’ Championship, to only 12 points.