Fernando Alonso has defended Ferrari's decision to attempt a one-stop strategy at the Canadian GP even though it cost him a possible race win.
For long periods Alonso was battling it out for victory with eventual race winner Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, but when Hamilton made a second stop for new tyres with 18 laps to go, Alonso and Vettel stayed out on track.
The move backfired on Alonso though, and he was left helpless when his tyres died with ten laps left as first Hamilton and then Romain Grosjean, Sergio Perez and Vettel (who stopped a second time) surged passed him.
While a second stop may have surrendered Alonso's chances of victory, it would surely have seen him finish higher than the fifth place he secured.
Despite this, Alonso has backed the team's strategy and praised their determination to go for the win.
"I'm proud of the team and happy we went for the victory," said the Spaniard.
"We tossed the coin in the air and we waited to see the result and it didn't work. At least we tried and we were not happy with second."
The former World Champion added that it was not necessarily the decision to only stop once that was the problem the team needed to focus on.
"We made the decision to try to win the race and it didn't work out, not because of the strategy, but because of the tyre degradation. I want that to be very clear because there will be confusion tomorrow, from people who don't understand the race," he explained.
"We stopped on the same lap as Grosjean, as he finished second with the same laptimes as Hamilton. So it's not about stopping with Hamilton or deciding not to stop, or stopping once or twice. The problem is that Grosjean did 55 laps with the tyres with a good pace and we did 45. That's the only problem."
Hamilton's victory sees the Briton climb ahead of Alonso to the top of the Drivers's standings, a fact that does not faze Alonso.
"It's all positive. The strategy we tried was positive, the result was positive and, again, the points scored are positive," he said.
"No one is going to win the championship in the seventh race, there's a lot left. But race by race, if you don't score strong points you may start to lose it. So when it comes to points for the championship it's another very good weekend."
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