When the first signs of showers hit certain areas of the track, Alonso switched from his hard to the medium tyre.

He pitted again soon after the rain picked up and spread across the track.

Alonso retained his second place, but Clarke insisted he would still not be able to beat race winner Max Verstappen had the Spaniard made a single pit stop instead of two.

He stressed that Silverstone made the right decision using the information available at the time.

“We need to look at how the whole thing is going,” Clark said. “Obviously in a situation like this, when you really don’t know what’s going to happen, you try to stay out as long as possible.

“Honestly, we didn’t expect this much rain. So we thought it was just a short shower and it would dry out quickly because the track was so hot. And then usually, you’d say, well, let’s stay One lap, two or three more laps, but the tires are worn out a lot.

“And we saw that the temperature was dropping. So it was a bit of a risk. When the car came in with this information, we said, well, let’s install the medium. But then the car drove away, and it didn’t take long before we saw the rain. Really big. We had to come back.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin F1 Team, 2nd position, spraying champagne on the podium

Photography: Mark Sutton/ motorsport pictures

Clarke admitted that the team did not expect the rain to intensify in such a way and did not think it would be enough for Inter to hang on.

“Honestly, we thought we could go through with medium because it dries out so quickly,” he said. “But then we misjudged the rain because it took a long time in this part of the track (the pit lane) to start to rain.

“There’s also this area, which has had the least amount of rain. So it might have been a bit of a miscalculation, because we also thought the middleware would wear a lot on this part of the track.

“At the end of the day it was a conscious decision to use the media. Then we saw after one lap that it wasn’t working. We decided to call him back.”

Clarke said Alonso didn’t lose the win: “No, I don’t think it lost. Because if we installed the middleware, Max would also have the middleware. And he has the gap. So I don’t think it will change a lot.

“I think in general we can’t get too greedy, we should look back and see what we were aiming for. We came here to be better than what we’ve done so far. I think we did. And I think Red Bull A little too fast for us.”

Krack also noted that it was safer to stick to the call for skinheads than to make last-minute changes, which could lead to confusion.

“As I said, the calls are made in a very short period of time. Then you have to live with it and when you decide, you have to execute. Because otherwise you’d have two wet tires and two slicks on the car .

“So once you make a decision, you have to execute. Because anything you try to recover, it’s going to go completely wrong. We’ll look at it, we’ll learn from it, and we’ll try to do better next time.

“We have a good understanding between the drivers and the team. Sometimes the drivers say you let it go. In this case we decided to install the slick. Fernando was happy with that. Then he was also happy to get the middle man back on the field !”