Ferrari strategy mistake: too focused on Webber

B e Ferrari everything was arranged for the big world championship celebration. President Luca di Montezemolo came specially flown in from Italy. Pierro Lardi Ferrari, son of company founder Enzo, also cheered in the pits. In the end, the champagne bottles stayed in the refrigerator. Austrian energy drinks, on the other hand, were pouring in.

But how could Fernando Alonso have the butter removed from his bread at the last second? How did the two-time world champion lose 19 points to Sebastian Vettel, who started just two places ahead of him? In the end, unfortunate circumstances were linked with a gross strategy blunder - and that in the most important race of the year.

Ferrari aligns strategy with Webber

The strategists' fundamental misjudgment was wrong assuming Mark Webber would be the main competitor that day. The Australian was able to put Ferrari under pressure right from the start because Jenson Button overtook Alonso before the first corner and involved the championship leader in a direct duel.

In the eleventh lap, Red Bull Webber also called out to the pit to change tires. At Ferrari there was brief perplexity at the command post. The core question of the strategists at this point was: Can Webber drive faster than Alonso on the new hard tires and overtake the championship leader in an indirect duel?

Alonso stays ahead of Webber - but loses against Vettel

You did nothing for two laps. Wait was the watchword. Then Massa was called to the pits. On lap 14 Ferrari had the chance to compare Webber's times on the new tires with Alonso's times on the used rubbers. Webber drove three-tenths faster, causing Scuderia to act immediately. Alonso also had to pit.

The tactic of keeping Alonso in front of Webber actually worked. The Australian stayed behind the Ferrari until the end of the race. In the heat of the moment, however, the tacticians completely lost sight of the rest of the action. Vitaly Petrov and Nico Rosberg had already stopped in the first lap and were suddenly ahead of Alonso. Suddenly the two-time champion had to overtake on his own in order not to lose too many places in the event of a Vettel win.

Alonso admits mistakes

As we know, he succeeded the exercise does not. Alonso desperate 34 laps behind Vitaly Petrov. Vettel drove more and more lead at the frontout and only briefly fell behind Jenson Button when he stopped. In the end, Alonso lost three valuable positions to the German competitor due to the strategy.

After the race, Alonso initially defended the tactics. After looking at the data, however, the defeated had to admit the mistake. 'In retrospect you have to say that we shouldn't have stopped so early. But that's easy to say after the race when all the facts are on the table. That wasn't an easy decision.'

Domenicali : 'Wrong decision for three reasons'

Team principal Stefano Domenicali became even clearer: 'We made the wrong decision for three reasons: We fought a competitor with two cars, we got each other Excessive concern about tire wear and we didn't consider how hard it is to overtake other cars on the track, but now it's too late to discuss the whys. '

Also chief strategist Chris Dyer didn't keep talking about the bush for long. 'We had the car and the driver to win the title. We didn't make it because we made a mistake with the strategy. It's also useless to look for excuses. We focused too much on Mark and suddenly got stuck in traffic. That cost us the title. You could say that we looked too closely at what was going on behind us and didn't see what was happening in front of us. '