Fernando Alonso “angry at the world, us, and everybody” after F1 Dutch GP – Mike Krack

The unfortunate timing between pitstops and the arrival of the safety cars during the Dutch Grand Prix left Fernando Alonso “angry with the world, us, and everybody”, according to Aston Martin chief trackside officer Mike Krack.

Alonso’s attempt to make progress from 10th on the grid was halted as he was mobbed by Alex Albon, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, and Yuki Tsunoda in the opening corners of the first lap. Frozen in lockstep with the rest, as he sat within DRS range of the Mercedes, Alonso made his first stop at the end of lap 18.

This set him to the back of the field, although scant consolation emerged when he undercut Tsunoda as the Japanese driver stopped on the following lap. However, the timing of Lewis Hamilton’s crash at Turn 3 offered the cars ahead of Alonso a much cheaper stop; as such, Lance Stroll and Oliver Bearman ended up between Alonso and Antonelli amid the stops.

When Alonso was mugged by Tsunoda on the lap of the restart, he spent 13 laps staring at the Red Bull’s rear wing before chivvying his team for a stop to get out of traffic. He went to the back of the field after his second stop and re-caught the pack a few laps before the second safety car.

This stop, and the subsequent decision to stay out for the final two safety cars, at least helped Alonso gather eighth place – but he felt more was possible if he hadn’t stopped so early.

Krack explained the scenario, and felt the team could be absolved of Alonso’s irritation given it could do little about the timing of accidents.

“He was angry with the race, he was angry with the world, he was angry with us, he is angry with everybody,” Krack said.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Joe Portlock / LAT Images via Getty Images

“Nothing we can do in these situations, we have to take it as it is and try to find the best solution with the new boundary conditions. The conditions have changed, now you have this, other people could stop in front.”

“We knew that other people had less tyres than we had, so they had to hang out, they had to stay out a bit longer and go through the rain.

“When we saw that the rain was easing off, we said ‘OK, we can undercut, because we get maybe 3, 4, 5 laps’ – and you could see with Lance it was working.

“Lance gained a lot of position by stopping very early there, so I think that was the right decision, but you can only do it if you have the tyres. At one point you think, ‘can we go to the end or not?’. But we could see that the tyre degradation was high.”

Krack explained that the team’s lack of running on Friday had compromised its weekend, as it did not have a realistic representation of plank wear at its initial ride heights; Stroll crashed at Turn 3 in FP2, and Alonso did limited longer runs – running only four-to-five laps in a stint overall.

“You have the plank wear, and you have to be legal after the race. We didn’t do a lot of laps on Friday, Lance had the accident and Fernando did not do many long-run laps, so you are a little bit in unknown territory when it comes to the wear,” Krack added.

“So you have to take a bit more of a conservative approach. We had to do that and that is costing a bit of performance.”