Fernando Alonso says Formula 1 is “too easy off the couch” as he hits back at claims Aston Martin could have won in Monaco last weekend.
Alonso said that fitting intermediate tires instead of slicks at the pit stop could “maybe” give him the win.
But he added: “What I don’t like about F1 is that we always see the negatives.
“We don’t place enough value on the right things teams do in really bad moments. We always catch one team making a mistake and then we take it hard.”
The 41-year-old Spaniard finished second to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at the Monaco Grand Prix for the best result for him and the team this season so far.
Suggests race analysis He had Aston Martin intermediate tires fitted when Alonso came to his first pit stop as rain was pouring down on parts of the track he would have ended up in front of Verstappen, who waited another lap to stop.
As it turned out, Alonso had to pit again later on because the rain got worse when he left the pits and it became apparent that the wet weather tires were the right choice.
Alonso insisted his team made the “right decision” given the circumstances at the time.
When asked if there was any way he could get out ahead of Verstappen, he said: “Maybe – if you have the crystal ball and you know the conditions, you know who stops, who doesn’t and then eventually it rains and you need inters, 100% stop.” about inters.
“What I don’t like about F1 is that we always see the negatives and we all see everything as too easy from the sofa.
“And I tell you an example. If we stop by laps, this week we will only talk about the wrong decision by Red Bull who stopped one lap too late.
“We would never say: ‘Aston Martin was very brave and chose the right tyre.’ We would just say that Red Bull chose the wrong tire and stopped one lap later.
“That’s just the F1 mentality, the boundless search for perfection that is sometimes unattainable.”
He defended the decision he and Aston Martin made in real time in Monaco, insisting that when he got to the pits the track was only partially wet and the team didn’t know what the weather was going to do.
“Now, if we look at the race on TV again, we’re going to stop overlapping, yeah, yeah 100%. The better,” he said.
“But at that moment, why didn’t Max stop for the intersections too? He held one lap longer than me but with a different tire.”
Alonso repeated the point he made on Sunday after the race in Monaco, that Aston Martin had enough of a gap to secure second place even if they risked choosing dry tyres, but would have to switch back to wet a lap later if the decision proved wrong.
By contrast, he said, if they had fitted intermediate tires at the first stop and then the rain stopped, as they thought from their forecast, they would have dropped to seventh behind a number of cars that had already changed for a car. A fresh set of dry tires 10 or more laps before the rain arrives.
He said: “So, if we make the wrong decision, we finish P2 in Monaco. We made it.”
