Fernando Alonso took yet another deserved and excellent second place for Aston Martin in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix. He is a superb driver – especially when he is enthused – in a front-running car again.

 

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edited by |Jus Mcmahon

 

Sport section -  CJ journalist

 

 Monaco – May,29,2023

 

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 For the first two-thirds of the race he did a fine job in keeping Verstappen honest, generally being within 10 seconds and keeping himself in the equation.

It all changed when the rain started to fall on lap 51. On lap 54, his team took the unusual decision to pit him and send him out on a fresh set of dry tyres whilst race leader Verstappen stayed out on his slicks, Red Bull waiting to make a decision.

It was soon obvious that they had made a hasty decision and a wrong one. The rain intensified and Alonso came in again the very next lap to change onto the intermediate tyres, as Verstappen did too. The Red Bull driver’s lead grew from around eight seconds to 25 seconds in that two-lap period and Alonso’s chances of victory evaporated.

Aston Martin may have thrown away best shot at victory

Did Aston Martin throw away victory? That is difficult to say as there are a lot of ifs and buts but they certainly threw away their best chance of winning.

Alonso and Verstappen had differing strategies from the start. Neither had pitted by lap 50, with Alonso on the more durable hard tyre and Verstappen with worn mediums on which he was starting to struggle. Alonso and Aston Martin then had the advantage and the luxury of being able to go longer than Verstappen, wait for the rain to come – or not – and then make their decision.

You could hear the uncertainty from Alonso’s radio messages in the run-up to his stop.

 He was confused about what to do and was then told he would go onto a fresh set of medium tyres. It all happened so quickly but need not have.

The team’s thinking was perhaps that their best chance of beating Verstappen was to be on fresh slick tyres if the rain stopped soon enough and was light enough, with the Red Bull driver either on old mediums or new intermediate tyres. It was a left-field choice more fitting of a team with a driver in 15th, not second.

Aston Martin would not have lost much by waiting another lap or so. Alonso’s hard tyres at that stage were perfectly fine and he is skilled enough to keep it on the track in those conditions. The longer they waited, the easier the call would have been. Instead they gambled at an outside chance of victory. It was a decision that did not need to be made when it was.

Decision was one of a mid-field team – not a genuine contender

Had they made a more measured call they could have at least closed the gap to Verstappen and put pressure on him. They might have even inherited the lead with a good out-lap. Mistakes can happen under pressure and we saw Verstappen have a few brushes with the barrier as the rain fell.

Were Alonso close behind he would need to take more risks. One small mistake on that track in wet conditions can cost you five or six seconds easily, but after his two pit stops Alonso was far too distant to affect his rival’s race.

Why did they run the gauntlet with their strategy? Some of it comes down to outlook.

You can view their decision through the lens of a team that finished seventh in the previous two seasons.

 It was almost as if they were trying to get a result from nowhere, to take a rare surprise podium or have an outside shot at glory.

The Aston Martin of today is probably the second or third best car on the grid.

Alonso pushed Verstappen in this race and was in contention, through genuine pace, even before the weather turned. These were the types of decisions we’d take at Jordan in the Nineties when the heavens opened – we were generally a midfield team and had less to lose and more to gain. But there are some occasions when you just need to consolidate the good result that you have.

Wise and experienced Alonso should have overruled team call

The driver must also take some responsibility. The team took the wrong gamble but Alonso, with all of his experience and talent, has the power to overrule their decision – and should have done so. We saw that with Carlos Sainz on Sunday, too, who stayed out when he was ordered into the pit lane.

We often hear a lot of radio conversations between Alonso and his team during the race. He is a smart character who takes on board a lot about what is going on during a race. Yes, the team should have been talking to him about his options and the conditions on the track, but they should also have been asking him for more information.

The weather radar systems that the team use are useful, but there is nothing to stop the people on the pit wall sticking their finger out and seeing which way the wind is blowing either. That is what is real.

The driver, though, is the ultimate radar. He is the only one who knows about the track and can feel what is happening in his car. He knows what his tyres are like, where the wettest corners are, and how the traction is. You can set people out all around the hills of Monaco to give you that information but the reality is that the driver should call the tune.

This is in contrast to how Red Bull went about their business. As the rain fell, Verstappen’s race engineer in effect said: “Stay out there on the dry tyres until you think it gets too difficult”.

Verstappen carried on until the point the it was no longer driveable on slicks. Red Bull feed their drivers information, as all teams do, but the man in the cockpit is a bigger part of the decision-making process.

Aston Martin have come so far so quickly and that is impressive. But it looks like it might take a little more time for them to start thinking strategically like a team who can challenge at the front. Had they done so in Monaco it could have paid off.

 

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