Symonds: We still would have finished second.

Pat Symonds has insisted that Fernando Alonso would still have finished in second place had he kept to the planned strategy for his second stop.

With Michael Schumacher struggling greatly with tyre degredation during the second stint of the race, allowing Alonso to home in on the seven-time world champion in just ten laps, it was thought that the Spaniard would merely vault him when he came in for his second stop, particularly as he was expected to run several laps longer.

However, this was not the case according to Symonds, who claimed that Alonso had been short fuelled at his first pit stop to get ahead of Jenson Button and Felipe Massa, meaning he had a maximum of just one more lap than Schumacher, a lap that was not thought to have been enough to get him ahead.

"Things became very surprising (in the middle stint). Michael's tyre degradation was suddenly dreadful - and it very soon became clear that we were significantly quicker than him, and running much faster. It took Fernando less than ten laps to close the gap and start pressuring him."

Instead, Symonds called Alonso in a lap early to try and get the jump on Schumacher. Ferrari duly responded by bringing Schumacher in immediately after, the German crucially managing to set a 1min 25.7 second in-lap, compared to the 1min 27.4 second laps he had been doing previously.

"The really significant thing was that on the free lap after Fernando pitted, Michael showed he had some performance in reserve. On the lap we pitted, he did a lap of 1:25.7 - where his average speed in the ten previous laps, was 1:27.4. The lap-times during the second stint had not suggested he had that performance in reserve."

As a result, Schumacher was able to stay ahead of Alonso to the chequered flag and take a famous victory at their home circuit. However, Symonds denies that he made a tactical faux-pas, saying that second place would have been inevitable anyway had they not taken a chance.

"Fernando pitted two laps earlier than we had planned. Had we been certain of going significantly further than Michael in the second stint then obviously, the option would have been to stay out - and it would have probably worked. But we didn't have that extra fuel, and we would probably have run only a lap longer than Michael.

"During that lap, he would have been on new tyres and we saw in qualifying that they were particularly strong on those opening 'golden' laps. So we didn't think it would work for us and obviously, simply following Michael in and out of the pits was not an option. So we got creative, and took the only other option available to try and get the win - to bring Fernando in early..."

Indeed, Symonds was far from disappointed with the result and took the time to praise Ferrari, who produced speed in the crucial stages of the race to end Renault's three-race winning streak.

"I think that's what motor racing is all about to be honest," he added. "Hats off to Michael and Ferrari, because they pulled a blinder! From our point of view, we could have run our planned strategy and still finished second. But it would have been an unsatisfying second place, because there would have been a 'what if' factor because we hadn't explored every option available to us.

"As it was, we tried everything we could - and it didn't come off because we saw two cars with very equal levels of performance, battling for the win. As I said yesterday, "nothing ventured, nothing gained." But in this case, nothing lost either."