McLaren chose three stops over tyre fears

Both Lewis Hamilton and teammate Heikki Kovalainen completed three scheduled pitstops, although two stops seemed to be the norm for everybody else.

Hamilton went on to finish in second place, while Kovalainen had to settle for 12th after being forced into the pits early on due to a puncture.

Dennis revealed after the race that concerns about the structural integrity of their tyres were the reason behind choosing the unusual three-stop strategy.

"It is a little unfortunate for Heikki," said Dennis. "He got clipped by Kimi at the beginning and cut a sidewall and saw the tyre was deflating so he had to stop for tyres.

"And with Lewis we had a bit of a structural concern on the tyres which we discovered in practice and we discussed it with Bridgestone and took a decision on safety to run three stops.

"We've taken a few points out of the leader and are competitive."

He added: "There was some internal delamination which Bridgestone were very good at picking up. We didn't want to have any tyre failure. It was possibly okay to run two stops, but it was a bit more severe on Lewis' and we put drivers' safety first."