Fernando Alonso says the one-stop to points in F1 Belgian GP was not planned, but the set-up they chose was which ended up being the right call.
While the one-stop from Mercedes’ George Russell took all the limelight in F1 Belgian GP, at the fag end of the Top 10, Aston Martin’s Alonso did the same to end up ninth on the line, which was converted to eighth after the disqualification of the Brit.
The one-stop was not a planned one from Aston Martin but they did it as the race progressed when they spotted low degradation. While he managed to gain from it, teammate Lance Stroll couldn’t and couple others too ended up outside points.
After DQ of Russell, it was Alonso as the lone driver in the Top 10 to undertake the one-stop strategy. “We had the plans, as always, Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, whatever,” he said to media. “So we covered the one-stop and the three-stops. At the end, we were just…we were P12, and we were just waiting for a safety car, maybe to play in our hands.
“And then 11 laps in the end, we started considering, ‘Okay, safety car is not coming, but maybe we go to the end?’ So it was just being very flexible, and lap-by-lap, judging the conditions, and at the end, it was the right call. But let’s say it was not planned just to go for one-stop from the beginning.
“I think we reacted to Esteban’s stop, I mean, we were flexible, we didn’t have the last two stops, so it was more or less around that time,” summed up Alonso, who felt the set-up they chose to give up some straightline speed ended up being the right choice for them to finish as the best of the rest behind the Top 8 cars.
The low degradation was something that nobody could have predicted but the conditions helped in it. “It depends to the cars you’re fighting for,” started Alonso. “In our case it was crucial, because the Williams and the Alpines, they were the two fastest cars on the straights, and if you fall behind, the race is over.
“So we underestimated a little bit that, but at the end our car thanks to the extra drag and downforce, maybe was taking care of the tyres a little bit better, and made it possible to do one-stop. So it was a trade-off, and I think it was the right call for us. Regarding degradation, I think especially with the new asphalt, you sometimes get very low deg or you get graining, you can have the two things.
“And today was one of those days. Maybe the temperature helped, to be a little bit hotter on Sunday. We had a lot of graining on Friday, and we didn’t have any today, but I think no one could predict even the last five laps. If the degradation was not linear, and you have a big cliff, the strategy will not work. It’s a little bit of luck sometimes when you take these decisions,” summed up Alonso.
Teammate Stroll ended up 11th eventually, as he stated: “It became clear during the race that the tyre degradation was lower than expected, so we elected to go for the one-stop strategy. We were running in P10 a few laps from the end of the race, but by that point I was struggling with the tyres and didn’t have the speed to hold position. We were missing the pace we needed to fight for more today.”
Here’s how F1 Belgian GP panned out
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