After a difficult Friday, given the problems of understeer in the corners and, at the same time, poor traction, Mercedes managed to turn the situation around on Saturday in qualifying, scoring an excellent second row that allowed it to start ahead of the more competitive McLaren of Oscar Piastri, who made a mistake in Q3 at the decisive moment.
In the race the values on the field emerged more clearly, with the Australian who managed to regain the position by overtaking the two W15s, with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton who finished fourth and sixth. If Russell’s race was rather linear, with a good defense in the last laps from the comeback of Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton’s was much more interesting and eventful.
Seeing the seven-time world champion start the race on the soft tyre was a surprise for many, but in itself it was not a gamble without reasoning. Given how the race evolved, clearly this choice shared between driver and team did not pay off but, in reality, it was a move with its own logical sense, keeping in mind both some historical aspects and predictions on some possible scenarios.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
The Singapore Grand Prix, like the Monaco one, has often featured almost group races, with close gaps between the various drivers. Mercedes had reasoned precisely with this scenario in mind, also in view of a possible management race by Lando Norris, who could have kept the group compact in order to keep Max Verstappen always in check by his rivals. In fact, it would have turned into a race very similar to last year’s, which would have allowed not only Mercedes, but also Oscar Piastri, to be in the running for second place.
The Mercedes move should be read in this light because, with a controlled pace in the first stint, the choice of the soft tyre could have proved to be a good one, also guaranteeing more grip at the start, the best moment in which to attempt an attack, similar to what Leclerc did on Russel twelve months ago. Undoubtedly the degradation would have been more marked than average but, if the Grand Prix had evolved as hoped by the Mercedes strategists, this issue would not have represented a big problem.
However, Norris chose from the start to run an attacking race, with a sustained pace from the first laps, which is why the plan quickly foundered. It is no coincidence that Mercedes immediately intervened by radio to recommend Hamilton to manage his pace and tires, without thinking too much about the two rivals in front who, in the meantime, were already taking off. In fact, for the Englishman, what should have been an attacking race turned into a defensive race.
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15, George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“I think we misread the race. We made a decision based on the previous races here in Singapore, where it’s basically a procession, like in Monaco, and that the soft tyre would give us an opportunity at the start,” explained Toto Wolff at the end of the Grand Prix, before stressing that it was the best chance to mix things up.
“That was basically the only overtaking opportunity. It was a bad decision that we all made together,” added the Mercedes Team Principal.
Hamilton was in fact one of the first to stop, at a time when in reality there wasn’t even a great need to anticipate the stop, because the times were relatively good and the risk, given that the group behind Hamilton was compact anyway, would have been to go out into traffic. A choice that Wolff links to the degradation of the rear tyres, an issue on which the W15 struggled all weekend, and which is actually in line with what could have been Pirelli’s indications before the race; however, given the evolution of the GP, the stop so early forced the seven-time world champion to have to manage the hard tyre for a long second stint, giving little chance to change the face of his GP.
Esteban Ocon, Alpine A524, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Of course, there was the remote risk that Piastri could anticipate the pit stop, but he would have exposed himself too much to the risk of a Safety Car compromising his race and, in fact, it turned out to be a move made only by those who had nothing to lose, like Sainz. It is no coincidence that Russell, staying on the track, also managed to complete the overcut being able to lap in clean air, while Hamilton had to extricate himself from traffic, ending up with tires 10 laps older than his teammate.
“It looked like it could give us a good offset, but with the degradation of the rear tyres we had, we went backwards. So, there was a logic behind it, but obviously it was against what we should have decided, but it doesn’t hide the fact that the car is too slow,” Wolff added.
In the end, the soft tyre wasn’t really a gamble, but rather a bet that made sense but for a race that, however, never existed.
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