Well, sometimes the driver can take the initiative, sometimes the decision needs to come from someone else and needs the team to make the decision for him. Alonso's job is to drive the car, not to look at the timing screens. I guess it depends what the reason was that they waited in the pits rather than went on the track. I guess they wanted to save the tyres as much as possible and do only 1 lap, in which case it's fair to blame the team because it's their job to allow for the forecast etc not the driver. If both Ferrari drivers were unsure to whether the slicks would be faster and that caused the delay then you're right that the drivers should take some of the blame. I agree completely that you shouldn't publicly criticize the team if your objective is to make them improve, the best place to do that is behind closed doors. However I think it was just an honest assessment of what happened in his opinion, overall his statements were quite reflective in the way he implied it could have worked out their way, but unfortunately it didnt. It isn't his style to criticize strategic decisions, he didn't even in Abu Dhabi 2010 for example.
And also to be fair, his criticism of the team in the speed of decision making etc is something Mattiacci has already said is an area the team needs to improve, so it isn't exactly controversial or the first time it's been said.
Right. And we should remember that had the rain not intensified exactly when it did, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I agree with Mark Webber's analysis on the BBC after Q1 - the little teams set their slick times first, because they're normally at the back anyway so they can afford to gamble and be the first to make the switch, and then it rained at just the right time for them, just as they were about to get smashed back to the rear of the grid by the likes of Williams and Ferrari. The extra rain that fell was not forecast. And the reasons for being in the garage were fairly clear - they came back in after their run on inters, like everybody else they probably felt that the track would be ready for slicks before the end but they'd have been concerned about tyre warm-up and the amount of damp patches still on the track. So when there is still plenty of time left in the session, you can see the temptation to wait and see what sort of sector times the likes of Gutierrez are setting. Because had the first people to go out on slicks started going slower or falling off the road, it would have indicated that a second run on inters was the way to go, or maybe no second run at all to save tyres, and you can't react to that if you have already sent your cars out on slicks, particularly if they then end up in the fence.
They were not in the same position as Williams, where they waited too long to do their first run (which was intended to be their only run) and then didn't have time to a run on slicks. They waited in the garage, but I doubt it was because they were reluctant to burn a set of slicks so much as that they were not confident that slicks were the right call, and they were afraid of the worst case scenario if they made the call without waiting for more data that would verify the call i.e. the sector times of the slick-shod cars. If the drivers had been adamant that they should go out on slicks, maybe they wouldn't have waited. Waiting for the extra data carried the risk that there might be more rain, and that's what caught them out, but we shouldn't let the fact that the rain came affect our judgement of whether the risk was assessed properly on the basis of the information they had at the time. If they took that possibility into account and decided it was still better to wait a couple of minutes, whilst that decision plainly turned out to be wrong, it doesn't have to be a faulty decision-making process. It could just be a case of the smaller teams rolling the dice and getting lucky, and Ferrari getting unlucky. On the other hand if the decision wasn't made because there was too much discussion of the risks of going out, and no assessment of the risk they were already running by being in the garage rather than on the track, then maybe Alonso is right.
I must say, though, as I was watching the session I was pretty sure the best times would come on slicks at the end. Normally if the track has gone from inter to slick conditions during the session, the laptimes come down and down until the end of the session, so another risk of starting your run on slicks too early is that you may take the edge off their performance before the end. You can't be on the track with low fuel and tyres in their optimum condition all the time - you have to judge when to go out.
If there's a problem with the decision-making at all, I don't think it's arrogance or complacency, I think it's more likely lack of confidence.