Todt downplays Renault's strategy error

Alonso caught up with Schumacher and was following him closely after the first round of pitstops, with Schumacher clearly struggling due to tyre problems.

But the Spaniard was unable to overtake the German, and on lap 41 Renault decided to bring Alonso in for an earlier-than-planned second pitstop.

Ferrari followed suit with Schumacher pitting on the following lap. And, while Alonso's in-lap and pitstop were 1:27.375 and 23.310, Schumacher's were 1:25.734 and 23.936 respectively - in total 1.015 seconds in favour of Schumacher.

This meant that Schumacher was able to retain his lead, coming out of the pitlane ahead of Alonso. The two world champions remained close together until the end of the race, but Schumacher no longer appeared to struggle or be threatened.

Ferrari's Todt admitted that Renault's strategy change came as a surprise to the Italians ("It was pleasing") and confirmed that Ferrari had also changed their strategy to react to the French team's improvisation ("We made a strategy correction as well").

But the Frenchman defended Renault, also belittling the contribution of these pitstops to Schumacher's race win.

Todt said: "When you have a lot of pressure like they had and we had, you tend to make some decisions, and sometimes it is good, and sometimes it is not a good decision.

"Had they stopped later, it doesn't mean it would have worked. Michael could have decided to increase his speed, if necessary, to fight for the win, so I don't think we can say that they lost because we put them in a situation to make that choice."

Todt further clarified that Schumacher was at a point in the race where he could have punched in faster laptimes if necessary.

Asked if Schumacher was driving deliberately slow at that stage of the race, Todt replied: "Sure. He was facing a problem, so he had to adapt his driving to protect the tyres, and he knew he could get some better speed at the end of the stint."

So would Ferrari and Schumacher have had a tougher time if Alonso pitted only after Schumacher, and not before?

"We will never know," was Todt's response.