Some of the Alfa Romeo drivers' manoeuvres during the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi GP, according to Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack, were "a bit borderline."
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The two teams were competing for sixth place in the world championship, which would have brought in an additional $10–12 million in prize money. Alfa Romeo used a strategy of running interference on the vehicles of Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll after failing to place in qualifying in an effort to lessen their prospects of earning enough points to take the lead. Stroll and Vettel eventually finished ninth and tenth, split by Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren, after Guanyu Zhou and Valtteri Bottas each managed to hold off the Astons at various points. On a countback of the best race result, Alfa Romeo won the position after the two teams were tied on 55 points. When asked if there was any anger in the camp for getting so near and then being tricked by Alfa, Krack denied it.
“We shouldn’t be upset about today, in my opinion,” he said. “In my opinion, the season came to a great conclusion, though it could have gone either way. So I don’t think being frustrated right now is appropriate. “In my opinion, they only paid attention to us. I believe that some of the manoeuvres were a little on the edge, but we were prepared for this to happen. We were aware to be cautious when we passed them because of this. Both drivers, in my opinion, handled it reasonably well.”
Vettel utilised a one-stop strategy and came in a position behind where he started. He made it clear during the race that he wasn’t pleased with how things turned out. Krack denied that worries about what Alfa Romeo might do had any impact on the decision to use one-stop. He replied, “No, we didn’t want to look at Alfa in this case. It was close between positions one and two before the race, and as you can see, some drivers completed one stop, while others completed two. Ricciardo also completed one stop. Therefore, I believe that at the end of the day, we work to increase our chances.
And we passed over Alfa Romeo. And I can see why Sebastian could have been a little annoyed at that point since he saw his teammate approaching who was using a different tactic. Krack claimed that because Vettel protected his tyres so well in the first stint, the team was inspired to run long and make just one stop. “Probably that’s one of the reasons,” he said, “because we probably would have stopped three or four laps earlier had he maybe been a little harsher.” “And this was also a topic of discussion. You have an ideal stop lap that you have already defined for, essentially, the fastest race.
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In the closing laps, the team was still holding out hope that Vettel would overtake Ricciardo and score the necessary point. It also provides you a larger tyre delta near the conclusion of the race to make the passes that are necessary if you run a different strategy from others, which is another reason why you should hang out a little longer on the first things, he continued. You always seem to be having that issue. Let’s say everything went according to plan, but you lose a second here, a second there, and that’s the cut—you aren’t ahead of any of them. From that perspective, I believe he was not far behind Lance at the conclusion of the day, but the two-stop plan was definitely better for us.
