Mercedes Explain Why Lewis Hamilton Used Softs During Hectic Sochi Q2

The penalty for Lewis Hamilton at Sochi roused oodles of controversy. The fans questioned FIA’s ethics and accused them of setting out on a witch-hunt to hold the Briton back.

Eventually, once the dust settled, it was nothing more than a misunderstanding between Lewis and his team. Although Wolff denies it to be his team’s fault, the radio doesn’t lie.

Chief Engineer Andrew Shovlin had a lot of explaining to do after the footage surfaced. At a post-race interactive session, Shovlin broke down the events during the weekend at Sochi.

The first question that came his way was why had the team put Lewis on soft tyres during Q2. Shovlin rendered an extensive description of the events, giving us the team’s point of view.

“We wanted both cars to start the race on the medium. It was a better tyre, lower degradation. We were doing that on the first runs in Q2 with both of them. Lewis was on a very good lap, but he went wide at turn 18,” elaborated Shovlin.

This unfortunate event deleted the lap times of the Briton. As a result, Lewis had to come back for a change of tyres. With the car running low on fuel, Mercedes was in for a tense 2 minutes in Q2.

READ MORE- REVEALED: The Misunderstanding Between Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes Which Led to Sochi Penalty

Vettel’s accident took away a fast lap from Lewis Hamilton

“We then went on again on our second set of medium tyres, our final set of medium tyres. Lewis was on another very, very quick lap. It would’ve easily put him through, but unfortunately, we got that red flag with Vettel just as Lewis was coming into the penultimate corner. So despite the fact that it was another quick lap, that didn’t count. 

Shovlin explained that after the red flag, it was just 2 minutes 15 seconds for the session. Therefore, the only sensible decision was to put on a soft tyre and pray that Lewis makes it.

“We knew it was going to be busy; we knew we were going to have to jostle for position on the out-lap; maybe even pass some traffic on the fast lap, so we were quite confident that actually although it wasn’t our Plan A going into the situation, taking a soft tyre at that stage was the right thing to do.”

Shovlin and his team took a colossal risk. But, if you don’t take risks, you cannot win. The theory is as old as time. The tense qualifying session finally ended with Hamilton taking the pole position. However, we are sure that wasn’t what the champ was aiming for.

READ MORE- “I am Only Human”- Lewis Hamilton Speaks Out on His Sochi Controversy With a Heartfelt Message