Alonso's Legitimate Strategy in 2008 Singapore GP

In the furor over the race fixing allegations involving Nelson Piquet Jr. and Renault, some attention has turned to teammate Fernando Alonso. The argument is that Alonso should voluntarily give up his trophy and prize money for winning the race and/or be removed from the final race results. The basis of this argument is that Alonso’s race strategy was not valid and could only be employed if he somehow was involved in the race-fixing strategy.

Once again common sense is ignored in the “scorched Earth” quest to place blame and demand punishment for dirty deeds done in F1.

Two facts debunk the populist argument against Alonso. First, the Renault had the pace of a potential race-winner. Second, the lightly-fueled, early pit sequence employed by Renault for Alonso was in fact a valid strategy.

Alonso’s lowly 15th place starting spot was not reflective of his true pace on the weekend. In fact, Alonso led P2 (1:45.654) and P3 (1:44.506), and he was 6th fastest in Q1 (1:44.971). Only a mechanical failure in Q2 prevented Alonso from moving on to the 10-car shootout for the pole. I’m not arguing that Alonso had the fastest car, but there is no doubt that he at least had the pace to legitimately contend for victory on a street circuit.

As a result of his lowly starting position, Renault and Alonso formulated an aggressive low fuel, early first pit stop strategy. I am not going to argue about the specific lap that Alonso came in, which was Lap 12. Whether or not this was intentional in anticipation of Piquet’s crash is the subject for investigators. However, what is important to recognize is that on street circuits, such an aggressive pit strategy, like the one employed by Renault and Alonso, is a valid one.

Anyone familiar with American street circuit racing knows that off-sequence pit strategies are commonly employed. The reasons are twofold. If the driver is fast enough, off-sequence pitting increases the likelihood of that driver finding clear track in which to run fast laps. Early in the race, the field is still bunched together. By starting the race lighter than those immediately ahead, the hope is that the driver will be able to make up several places at the start before coming in for the first stop. After the pit stop, the driver will be last in the field but will have clear track ahead in which to run all-out race laps. By the time the rest of the field makes their pit stops, the driver should be much further up in the order than at the start.

The second component of the early pit strategy is that the team is gambling for a caution period that favors their driver who is off sequence from the rest of the field. This component is well known since this is exactly how events played out in Singapore. If not for subterfuge, Alonso was very lucky. But he wasn’t the first driver to win a race due to the timing of the safety car. And strategy alone is far from enough evidence to implicate Alonso in F1′s latest scandal.