McLaren defend German GP strategy

Raikkonen had started on pole and led the early laps, but lost time at his first pitstop with a stuck wheel nut. He then suffered hydraulic issues and severe tyre degradation - which dropped him down the order before his recovery to finish on the podium.

McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh is well aware that Raikkonen's race would have been more straightforward with a two-stop strategy. But, after analyzing their pre-race performance, the team felt they had nothing to lose by taking a different approach to their rivals.

"We went about it the hard way," admitted Whitmarsh. "To be honest, we thought we had the tyres under control and we took a view that we did a whole sweep of options and whatever we did it came out third.

"So what do we do? Go down a conservative route or throw a curved ball into this? We still had the pace to get third place."

Whitmarsh believes that the more aggressive strategy gave the team a better chance of controlling their fate, because it allowed them to dictate their own pace early in the race.

However, he admits that the pitstop, hydraulic and tyre issues complicated their afternoon more than they expected.

"You can guarantee that you're in clear air by starting on pole and you can clear away," he explained. "But you need to jump out after your first stop without getting into traffic.

"It started to go wrong for us at that point, because we started to lose time with the wheel nut. After a few other hiccups, we made life very difficult and we relied on Kimi at the end to hustle past Button."