Rather than rue a lost victory, Fernando Alonso hailed Ferrari after the Canadian grand prix.
The Spaniard and former championship leader was at the head of the Montreal field late on Sunday, until his Pirelli tyres gave up their grip.
His team, however, persevered with the one-stop strategy, while Sebastian Vettel gave up, pitted and ultimately passed him, and Lewis Hamilton won with the clearly superior two-stop strategy.
The struggling Alonso was even passed by Hamilton’s fellow podium-getters Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez, and he ultimately finished just fifth.
According to Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo, the 30-year-old conceded that, in hindsight, making another pitstop would have been the better choice.
But he hailed Ferrari anyway.
"I’ve never before seen a kind of progress as we have made this year, and this development (in Canada) was the most significant we have made for a long time.
"At the beginning of the season we were struggling to get out of Q1, and now we are fighting for the first places on the grid and for victories," added Alonso.