30/05/2023
NEWS STORY
Aston Martin team boss, Mike Krack has defended the team's decision to fit slicks to Fernando Alonso's car even as rain was falling.
As the 'would he, wouldn't he' debate continues, Krack insists that the decision to fit mediums to Alonso's car when he pitted on Lap 54 was the correct call, even though he had to pit again a lap later as conditions deteriorated.
For some time there had been conflicting reports from the various teams to their drivers about when, even if the rain would arrive, as well as the anticipated intensity.
When the first spots began to hit, it was at the northern section of the track, the section that includes Mirabeau to Portier.
First to pit (on Lap 51) were Bottas and Stroll, both switching to Inters, with Zhou, Albon and Sargeant following suit a lap later.
Lap 53 saw Tsunoda, de Vries and Perez stop, again all switching to the green-banded rubber, while Alonso made his fateful stop next time around, as did Russell, Ocon, Hamilton, Gasly, Piastri, Norris and Hulkenberg. However, while the rest, who were all running behind second-placed Alonso, switched to Inters, the Spaniard went from the hards on which he had started the race to used mediums.
Next time around, as the rain increased, Verstappen pitted, as did Alonso again, Leclerc and Sainz.
"You try to stay out as long as you can in such conditions when you do not really know what's going to happen," explains Krack. "We did not anticipate so much rain, to be honest. We thought that it would just be a short shower and drying quickly because the track was very hot.
"Then, normally, you would say, 'okay, we stay out one more, two, or three more laps', but the tyres were worn already quite a lot.
"We thought we could go to the end with the mediums because it will dry quickly," admits the German. "But then we misjudged a bit that it was raining because it took very long before it started to rain (in the pitlane). I think also this area, it started raining the least.
"So probably that was a misjudgement because we thought also that the inters would wear down massively in this part of the track.
"At the end of the day, it was a conscious decision to go on the mediums," he insists. "We saw then a lap later that it was not going to work and we decided to call him back in."
Nonetheless, he believes that the wrong call didn't cost Alonso a possible win.
"I don't think it was lost because if we had fitted intermediates, Max would have fitted intermediates as well. Also he had the gap, so I don't think it would have changed much."