How Ferrari got its strategy so wrong

Ferrari's top brass admitted after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that the decision to pit Fernando Alonso early cost the Spaniard a clear shot at the 2010 drivers' title. Tony Dodgins discusses the team's strategic options and suggests his own alternatives.

In Brazil, someone asked Patrick Head why he thought we'd had such a good year, so close and competitive between so many teams and drivers. We used to be happy with a duel, any duel, but now we had four and five-way battles between teams and drivers. Would it become the norm?

"If you go back 10,15, 20 years," he said, "there was seldom more than two good teams at any one time and in the really old days Ferrari used to happily trip over themselves and get over-excited if they had a good race. Then the Jean Todt/Ross Brawn/Rory Byrne era came along. We rather regretted that because they were much more colourful when they were all a bit spaghetti and red wine!"

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