Mercedes technical chief James Allison has admitted it was a “clear mistake” to start 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton on the soft tyres at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Hamilton was the only driver♒ in the top 10 to opt for softer rubber for the start of Sunday’s race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

The seven-time world champion was unable to gain a place at the start despite challenging 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Max Verstappen into Turn 1.

From that point, Hamilton’s pace ultimately was po💫or, coming into ♉the pit lane on Lap 17.

This proved to be too early as he was overcut by teammate168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: George Russell - and ultimately beaten by 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Oscar Piastri and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Charles Leclerc.

Hamilt༺on has already voiced his criticism of the strategy in a Petronas sponsor event following the Singapore GP.

Speaking in a video on Mercedes’ YouTube ๊channel, Allison explained their rationale for choosing the softs.

“Before I give the explanation, I willꦐ 𒈔just start off by saying: we shouldn’t have started on the softs, that was a mistake,” he said. “If we could turn back time we would do what those around us did and select the mediums.

“The reasoning was that the soft tyre very often allows you to get away from the start abruptly and allows you a good chance of jumping a place or two ꦰin the opening laps of the race. We had no real expectation before the race that we were going to suffer the sort of difficulties that we then experienced on the soft rubber.

“We imagined we would get the upside of the soft rubber, of getting a place or two. We didn’t becaꦛuse that is the way the starts played out.

“We hoped that the downside of the soft being a bit more fragile wouldn’t play out particularly badly because on the whole if you look back over the years in Singapore, on t꧃he whole, the pace starts very, very easy at Singapore and the drivers then build up the pace over many, many laps leaving a soft tyre perfectly OK to run relatively deep into the pit window.

“We didn’t get the place ꦑat the start, the pace start building up from around Lap 5 and that left Lewis with a car that wasn’t particularly happy anyway suffering from quite poor degradation and needing to come in early as a consequence. It really ruined his race for him. A clear mistake.”