Bisonas wrote: ↑21 Apr 2024, 15:14
I don’t get why ppl are frustrated with the strategy and the tire choice. Even Rosberg at live coverage was saying kind of stupid things about it. But ok, i can understand that the commentators don’t have the whole picture about what ALO or AMR are doing but ok AMR strategists are not that stupid.
Well for some of us that do have the whole picture, with Live tv + Onboard & pitwall communications + Live timing is more easy to understand what’s really going ok.
As someone else said they didn’t have much of a choice at that point. The safety car forced their hand. They had to pit for new tires or they would have been exposed to more pain l8r on. Even if they had another brand new set of hards at that point, I don’t think (nor they I guess), that they could manage 27-30 laps to the end with competitive times. Not with their current tire deg anyway. Of course doing 27-30 laps on Mediums was also out of the question.
So.. at the first safety car the only real debate (for me at least) was going for soft first then medium, or medium first and soft at the end. Medium first was giving them a little more flexibility but soft first was giving them more chances to get ahead of SAI at the restart and try to make as much of a gap to him before the last pitstop. I think Soft first was the better/wiser choice at that point. Getting ahead of SAI was very crucial to them.
Now about the points. I hear ppl saying Alonso lost many points with that strategy etc etc. I don’t really think that he lost many points. IMO he just lost 1 point while giving RUS 2 more.
Let me explain.
Even If he could fit a brand new Hard at the Safety car, trying going to the end to emulate all the others, I have to remind you that he ended up at 6th position at the restart behind SAI. The only reason he got passed SAI was because he had new softs at the restart. So, even if he had new Hards, I find it very very difficult he could get ahead of the Ferrari at the restart because SAI hards wheren’t old at that point. They where just 8-9 laps old and 5 laps or so where under VSC or SC conditions. So basically SAI tires where just fine.
So IMO realistically best case scenario with new hards going to the end was for him to finish 6th behind SAI and get 8 points while RUS end up 7th and get 6 points. With their (forced due to circumstances I repeat) strategy they ended up 7th getting 6 Points + 1 point due to fastest lap = 7 points total. So they ended up minus 1 as I said. RUS on the other had instead of finishing 7th with 6 points he ended up 6th with 8 points so +2 for RUS as I said.
That’s it. For me it was a pretty good damage limitation and response to a very bad timed SC for them. Some may even argue that without the 2nd safety car, it may have been possible for them to also get RUS at the end and get near SAI. Who knows.
For me they did the absolute best thing they could have done at that point.
Sorry for the long post.