5
Lewis Hamilton has admitted confusion over his race strategy during the US Grand Prix, which saw him finish the race in third place. The Briton was hoping to secure his fifth world championship in Austin, but has been made to wait until at least next weekend in Mexico.
Hamilton pitted early on in the race when a virtual safety car was deployed. Mercedes called him into pits after telling him to do the opposite to Kimi Raikkonen, who was leading the race. Raikkonen and Ferrari opted to stay out, which saw Hamilton come into the pits.
However, he was forced to take a second pit stop, while Raikkonen and Max Verstappen, who finished in first and second respectively, made it through the Grand Prix on a one-stop strategy.
Before he made his second stop, Raikkonen had closed the gap by over ten seconds, which put Hamilton twelve seconds behind when he made his stop. And post-race Hamilton expressed his puzzlement.
"We made it so hard for ourselves," Hamilton stated. "I'm not really quite sure how the strategy ended up like that. Twelve seconds was way too far to catch up. Naturally I thought we would be able to do better. It's a little bit of a surprise, but you can't always get it right."
Grand Prix of BelgiumLocal time
Grand Prix of BelgiumLocal time
Bahrain International Circuit - Winter testing
M. Verstappen
C. Sainz jr
C. Leclerc
Bahrain
Bahrain
Bahrain International Circuit
Bahrain
Bahrain International Circuit
Saudi Arabia
Jeddah Street Circuit
Australia
Albert Park
Japan
Circuit Suzuka
United States of America
Miami International Autodrome
Monaco
Monte Carlo
Canada
Gilles Villeneuve
Spain
Circuit de Catalunya
Austria
Red Bull Ring
United Kingdom
Silverstone
Hungary
Hungaroring
Belgium
Spa-Francorchamps
Netherlands
Circuit Zandvoort
Italy
Monza
Azerbaijan
Baku City Circuit
Singapore
Marina Bay Street Circuit
United States of America
Circuit of the Americas
Mexico
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
Brazil
Interlagos
United States of America
Las Vegas Street Circuit
United Arab Emirates
Yas Marina Circuit
723,024 comments on Red Bull Racing
965 members have this team as their favourite
Tweets about Max Verstappen
483,632 comments on Ferrari 279 members have this team as their favourite Tweets about Ferrari
Replies (5)
Login to replyRindtchamp
Posts: 304
Maybe he was confused because Bottas "wingman" had to let him past twice in one race?
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
This was Mercedes' worst race in some time. They literally threw away the race after having the upper hand. They could have pitted Lewis while he could still come out ahead of Max.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
The thing is: the thing they did make sense at the time. If I were doing my drinking game, I would have taken a shot, thinking Ferrari had made another strategic blunder by not pitting under the virtual safety car. It wasnt bad strategy, Ferrari and Red Bull just did it better. Also cool how Max lasted that long on the SS.
juju_hound
Posts: 180
Mercedes was unable to win today with their tyres degradation. I totally agree with their decision - it was sth they had to do when Lewis lost advantage to Kimi at the start.
Im just surprised how hard was it to overtake yesterday even using DRS.
I thought Seb will overtake Valterii in one second but it didnt happen.
KyalamiKid
Posts: 146
The strategy could have worked, but they should have called him in when he was still ahead of Verstappen... They waited too long IMHO