Singapore, Mercedes makes mea culpa on Hamilton strategy

by VALERIO BARRETTA

Singapore GP, Mercedes admits mistake

“I fought as hard as I could to start on the medium tyres, but the team kept saying that I should start on the soft ones.“. Lewis’s words Hamiltonwho commented on the Singapore Grand Prix, where he finished in sixth place (despite third place on the grid), expressing his disappointment with the strategy chosen by Mercedes.

The choice to start with the soft tyres was quite aggressive and was justified by the attempt to gain at least one position at the start. Hamilton, however, remained in third place and tried to manage the soft compound as much as possible, but pitted on lap 17 to fit the hard tyres: a forced decision, since the soft tyres were “finished” and there were 45 laps to go, but at the same time the hard tyres would have suffered in the intense heat of Marina Bay.

Allison’s words

In short, Mercedes’ strategy with Hamilton has been full of holes. And technical director James Allison did not hide it: “We shouldn’t have started with the soft ones, it was a mistake. If we could go back in time, we would do as the others and go for the mediums. The reasoning was that the soft tyre very often allows you to get a good start, giving you a good chance of overtaking one or two cars in the early laps. That was not the case.“, this is the comment of the British.

“We were also hoping that the downside of the softs wouldn’t be too bad, because if you look at the past few years in Singapore, you start slow and then pick up the pace after a lot of laps and leave a soft tyre that’s perfectly capable of working until the pit window. Instead, the pace started to pick up from lap five and that left Lewis with a car that wasn’t particularly good. As a result, he had to pit early and that ruined his race.“.