Reiterating from what was said in the Monaco pre race analysis, the circuit is notoriously difficult to overtake on. With Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll qualifying 16th and 14th respectively, it was always going to be a challenge getting into the points. Both of the Haas drivers were disqualified due to their DRS system not being legal so Alonso was promoted to P14 and Stroll to P13.

After a successful Lap 1 for both of the Aston Martin drivers – where Lance made up 3 places and Alonso with 2 – the red flag meant the restart order put them back to their original positions. For the restarted race, Peter Hall and the other strategists decided to put Lance and Fernando on 1 lap scrubbed Mediums after already being on 1 lap scrubbed hards (they did this because when a race is red flagged, you can freely change tyres – you must also change your tyres during a race at least once, which allowed the team to meet this quota).

RACE RESTART

On the race restart, Lance blocked Daniel Riccardo from the front and Alonso got on the outside of him allowing the Spaniard to overtake him showing the teamwork between the drivers. With Monaco typically being a 1 stop race, it wasn’t expected to see anymore pits after the free tyre change, so Vizzard and Cronin told the drivers to undergo heavy management after lap 4 of the 78 lap race. The expectation was that the Medium tyre would have to complete the next 74 laps which was a real challenge.

Come lap 21, Fernando asked his race engineer whether it was worth going after a new strategy as they were already out of the points and had nothing to lose. Around a similar time, Stroll started complaining of grainining on his tyres which wasn’t good news with over 50 laps to go. On lap 25, Cronin told Alonso they were going to do “Plan B + 2”. We can infer this to be a predetermined lap time + 2/0.2 seconds. During this period Alonso was also struggling with him being told to control his slip out of Turn 12 to protect the rears.

On lap 29, Stroll was lapping 7 tenths faster than Alonso so it became pretty clear what the objective was – Alonso was to hold up the cars behind to create a pit window for Lance where he’ll be on a faster and newer compound to overtake Pierre Gasly and others in front. Lap 44 soon arrived where Lance was told to box opposite to Gasly after Fernando made a 21 second gap to Lance (normal pitloss is around 19 seconds).

The team fitted the original hard tyres that were on at the start to Lance’s car. He was then told to be at maximum pace and follow the leaders of the race (who just lapped him as he pitted). On lap 49, Lance was gaining 1.4 seconds a lap on Gasly where it was expected he’d reach him in 12 laps time. This plan all came falling down as Lance’s left rear hit the wall at the Nouvelle Chicane causing him to get a puncture, ending any hopes of getting points.

Lance pitted for fresh softs with the optimistic hope of him being able to overtake Alonso’s convoy of cars behind him and reach Gasly in time. On lap 67, Lance knew it was too late. Fernando completed the rest of the race on the Mediums from the race restart.

Our wrap up is that the race was uneventful and was a disappointing result for the team. If Stroll didn’t have his accident, points were certainly on the table.

FERNANDO ALONSO POST RACE INTERVIEW:

“We were a little bit unlucky at the beginning of the race. We chose the Hard tyre to start the race aiming to go very long in the first stint. With the red flag everyone changed tyres, we did the same but had to fit the Medium and go to the end which was tortuous. It was very difficult to keep the tyres alive.

“At one point we thought we’d try a different strategy with Lance – a pit stop to attack Gasly, we were out of the points with nothing to lose. It didn’t work but generally it was a disappointing weekend. We need to get better for Canada.”

LANCE STROLL POST RACE INTERVIEW:

“I think we always expected the race to be about managing the tyres so that was no surprise, especially after the restart. You need a big delta to overtake here so we did what we could with the strategy. I had a gap over Pierre [Gasly] so we pitted for Hard tyres to try and race him in the second half of the grand prix.

“In the end it didn’t work out so we missed out on scoring a point. This weekend was not the easiest and shows we need to find some more pace.”