One of the highlights of the 2021 Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix took place in the very last part of the race, with Lewis Hamilton looking genuinely willing not to pit and finish the event with just one set of intermediate tires. .
In fact, remember that, in a wet race, the riders have the possibility of not making stops and they do not even have any constraints linked to the two compounds that they must necessarily use as it happens in dry grand prix.
Hamilton has long pushed to stay on track and not make the stop. This had opened up the possibility for Mercedes to close with the same set of Intermediates, trying to take an unexpected podium until halfway through the race, or to have the window to mount the Soft tires and avoid an extra pit stop that many others should have done. pilots who had chosen to mount a second set of intermediates.
At the end of the race, Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained Hamilton’s situation at that particular moment of the race, which had several windows open. These, however, did not materialize and then forced the team to close the race with a stop to mount the second set of intermediates.
“Lewis fought with Perez and, shortly after, when he decided to stop, we asked ourselves 2 questions. The first: will we put on another set of intermediates? We thought to wait and see, because the situation had opened up a couple of possibilities. . One is that if the track dried out, Lewis would be fighting for the win again as he didn’t have to make extra stops, having fitted a set of dry tires. The second option was to go all the way with a set of Intermediates and, by doing that, we would have kept the third position. The scenarios were those and we were studying them “.
“They were both positive scenarios, but when we saw Leclerc having trouble with the tires (he was trying the same gamble as Lewis, ed), things changed quickly. At that point, with Leclerc and Perez on new tires, third place would be He was in danger. Because with new tires they would have caught Lewis in no time. At that point we understood that the scenario of finishing the race with a set of tires was not realistic. “
During the race Hamilton stated several times that, if he stopped, he would have liked to use dry tires (as did Sebastian Vettel – wrongly -). Shovlin pointed out that intermediates were still the ideal choice even though the track was less wet than the first half of the race.
“At the end of the race the intermediates still seemed to be the right compounds. But it would have been necessary to stop earlier. I think at that point we should have brought him back in earlier to try to make up positions. The question, however, is how much could we have gained from such an event? Honestly I do not know”.
Esteban Ocon, Alpine rider, completed all 58 laps in Turkey with just one set of tires, the intermediates mounted from the start. After having firmly occupied a position in the Top 10, in the last laps his tires had a vertical collapse, so much so that he lost the points area to 7 tenths of a second after having suffered several overtakes. This led Mercedes to consider Hamilton’s pit stop correct, who could have risked losing more points than he actually left on the road at Istanbul Park.
“If we look at Ocon’s tires, who did all the GP without stopping, therefore with the same Intermediates, he was overtaken by Stroll with 5 laps to go, and finished 17 seconds behind him. The tire decay, when it happens , he is very fast and violent. In fact we thought if it was possible to do it with Lewis, at the pace he maintained. Ocon lost another few seconds before the end of the race, risking to come out of the Top 10 (he didn’t do it for just 7 tenths, ed. ). We are pretty sure that if Lewis had kept the same set of tires throughout the race, he would have lost many more positions than he did with the stop. “
At the end of the race, in the usual debriefing, the engineers showed Hamilton why he was called back to the pits and was given another 4 intermediate tires. During the race, the 7-time world champion had repeatedly said he was against making the pit stop, but with the checkered flag exposed he understood the reasons of his engineers.
“The fact is that Lewis is always looking forward, to the maximum he can achieve. He is involved in this World Championship and we expected nothing but his discontent after finishing fifth in the grand prix. At one point we thought we could resist. But we will go further. “
“We talked to him and he understood our reasons. I just think that sometimes in the race he is just frustrated by some situation. He thought he could finish on the podium, but he didn’t. It’s natural that he’s disappointed. But it was. reasonable and we are in the middle of a battle for the World Cup. At some point you have to stop taking risks and you have to minimize your losses, even if these decisions are difficult to make. You have to be strong and make them, “concluded Shovlin.