Ferrari technical director, Aldo Costa insisted that Fernando Alonso lost the World Championship not because of his poor driving but because of the badly tailored race strategy of the team.
The season finale, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, saw the driver lose hopes of a third Championship as Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull bedded a fifth race win of the season.
As the Formula One caravan entered the last round, Alonso topped the charts with a dominance of eight points over his closest competitor, Mark Webber, while Vettel stood 11 points behind.
However, as the day unfolded Vettel who started the race from pole position bagged another victory while Alonso who only needed a fourth place to win the Championship, ended up in 7th followed by Webber in 8th.
The team tried to play safe with their strategy, but it turned out to be their undoing. Seeing Webber take an early pit stop, the Italian team also decided to get their Ferrari in the pits quickly. This cost both the drivers heavily
as they got stuck behind traffic that had pits even earlier than them during the Safety Car run. For 40 laps at the Yas Marina circuit, the two kept struggling behind Vitaly Petrov of Renault who only gave way once he crossed the finishing line. By then Vettel
had already nabbed the Championship leaving Alonso behind him in second place in the season’s standing and only four points short.
While recalling the events the Ferrari Technical Director said, "We got it wrong. We didn't approach the race to do our best but to obtain an average result that would have been sufficient. And when you do that a little thing,
a 'Petrov', a safety car, comes along and everything falls apart.”
He was very determined as he vowed that such a mistake would never again be repeated.
While reflecting on the events of the day, Costa said that the air in the Ferrari garage turned bleak and gloomy as they realised that their title hopes were over.
"When Fernando crossed the line we were all frozen. For five or 10 minutes we stared at the monitor. No one budged, no one took off their helmets. No one spoke. No one wanted to accept reality," he continued telling.
Costa admitted that Ferrari made an impulsive decision, however he further stated that even their car was not as quick as their competitors.
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