How the Mercedes F1 pit call that angered Lewis Hamilton played out in Turkey
Lewis Hamilton recovered from 11th on the grid to fifth in Formula 1's Turkish Grand Prix, but he was left frustrated after disagreeing with Mercedes over team radio regarding a late decision to pit.
The seven-time world champion wanted to try and go to the end of th♈e race without stopping for a fresh set of intermediate tyres, but his Mercedes team were at odds with Hamilton, believing he was at risk of losing his third place if he did not come in.
Hamilton’s frustration with Mercedes was clear during a hea⭕ted exchange with race engineer Peteღr Bonnington in the closing stages.
“Box box, new inters are the way 🦹to go,” came the initial message from Bonnington on lap 42 of 58, to which H💜amilton replied: “Why? I don’t think it is, man.”
Having initially fought against Mercedes’ instructions, Hamilton eventually pitted with ei𝄹ght laps to go.
In doing so, he surrendered his third place in the pits and dropped behind both the Red Bull of Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s♛ Charles Leclerc, much to Hamilton’s displeasure.
“F**k man, why d♏id you give up third place?” Hamilton responded angrily, before going on to ask: “What positio🌱n am I in man?”
When informed he was now fifth, Hamilton snapped back: "🔥We shouldn’t have come in man. I told yo♛u!”
Mercedes hoped Hamilton would have the pace to reclaim the lost places on track, but rather than attac💖k Leclerc and Perez’s, the last laps of the race instead turned into a defensive mission to fend off Pie꧒rre Gasly’s AlphaTauri with Hamilton running into problems getting up to speed on his new tyres.
“The tyres are bald so you don’t know how far they’re going to go,” Hamilton told Sky. “So there’s defini🦂tely the worry of the life of the tyre.
“But also, I wasn’t really that fastꦍ at the end there. I was struggling, had low grip. Not really sure why. But then all of a sudden I’d have not such bad pace. But I was lo🐷sing performance to the guys behind.”
Did Mercedes get it wrong?
Hamilton bel𓂃ieves in hindsight that Mercedes would have been better off either stopping earlier, or committing to staying out.
“Probably in hindsight, I should have either stayed out or come in much earlier,” he explained. “Because when you come in with eight laps to go, you don’t have time to go thro📖ugh the graining phase of that🌌 [intermediate] tyre on a drying track.
“So thꦜen I went through this whole sliding phase where I nearly lost 🍌more positions. So it’s frustrating, but it is what it is.”
Me♛rcedes boss Toto Wolff explained that theಞ team was holding onto the hope that Hamilton could save a pit stop by staying out until the track dried enough to switch onto slicks, rather than intermediates. But that crossover point never arrived.
“It's quite interesting because the intermediate obviously looked really scary but we thought that we could maybe hang out there and finish third ♔with not stopping or if a dry line appears, maybe even going onto a soft tyre until the end,” he told Sky.
“So that we balanced between pitting, taking it very conservative figh🐓ting with Leclerc and Perez on the track for P3, or taking a little bit of a gamble but either winning or finishing third. And then we saw Leclerc dropping off and then Lewis started dropping off and it was clear we wouldn't make it to the end.”
༒Speaking in a later media call, Wolff revealed that Mercedes was concerned about potentially suffering a “catastrophic” tyre failure had Hamilton tried to make it to the end.
He ultimately concluded that the right decision would have been to pit Hamilton earlier, mirror🐈ing what his rivals - Lec🔴lerc aside - did but described it as a “very close call”.
“I think in the car it’s always 😼very difficult to assess your position in the race,” Wolff explained.
“We could have either played it very conservative and pitted him when Verstappen and Perez pitted and then fight it out on track and probably come✱ out behind Perez and fight for P4, P3 on track.
“The other thing was to try to go long and either transition꧙ to a dry tyre or just not stop anymore.
“So, there were two possible options that sounded quite good because finishing fift🐻h, where we were, obviously we would have done that because Gasly was far𒀰 away.
“Then unfortunately the pace just dropped off much quicker than we would have needed in order to stay third or even fourth or even fifth. We almost lost the window against Gasly and then we decided ‘OK that♓’s not goin🎶g to happen and let’s pit and consolidate fifth’.
“So I think in hindsight now we would have pitted 10 laps earlier and fought it out on track pr🐲obably and finished third and foꦺurth but there was much more to gain from the other, more dynamic, variant.”
With Hamilton and V🐈erst🌳appen and Mercedes and Red Bull so evenly matched, fine margins look set to decide the 2021 title race. So will Mercedes come to regret Turkey?
“The whole season swings back and forth,” Wolff said.🍎 “We make mistakes together, we win together. We have had much bigger swings in the past with lost opportunities.
“In the end we💟 lost eight points to Red Bull wit🍷h the grid penalty, whereas Red Bull last week were happy with a seven-point loss. So it’s going to be very tight until the end.
“DNFs are going to make a big difference and that was the consideration today, and not three or fo♌ur or five-point swings.”
Lewis regularly attends G꧑rands Prix for mahbx.com around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of tꦯhe people who matter in the sport.
