Stoic Alonso defends Ferrari strategy

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso defended his team’s strategy of calling him in for an early pit stop yesterday after he finished only seventh in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and lost out in his world title bid.

The 30-year-old, twice before a world champion and who went into the race as the series leader, could not fight back from his mid-field position to score enough points to make an impact as Red Bull’s German driver Sebastian Vettel won a thrilling race to seize the title.

Alonso was in fourth place on lap 13 when Ferrari called him in to switch tyres, having seen championship rival Australian Mark Webber of Red Bull make a pit stop two laps previously.

“After the race, it is always very easy to see the best strategy,” he said.

“We felt it was the best one. Sometimes you need to cover from someone and if we didn’t stop I think Webber probably would have overtaken us.

“Of course, if we stopped we covered Webber, but we let (Vitaly) Petrov and (Nico) Rosberg get in front of us so it was a very difficult call I think.

“It was obviously a difficult race.”