Mercedes Explain Strategy Error that Cost Lewis Hamilton the Singapore Win

At last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, Mercedes were left hung out to dry by Scuderia Ferrari. To make matters even worse, Singapore was a circuit that Mercedes normally performed well at.

The real slap on the face was when Ferrari delivered a 1-2 finish, with Max Verstappen rounding out the podium. It was the second time this season that neither Mercedes made it onto the podium. In addition to that, Lewis Hamilton was furious at the team’s poor strategy.

However, the German team explained that the decision was based on traffic concerns. In addition to that, Charles LeClerc’s predicted pace was reason enough not to attempt an undercut.

Unfortunately, the decision backfired as everyone underestimated the power of the undercut. Hamilton dropped from second to fourth place and Sebastian Vettel was the big winner and took the win.

Lewis Hamilton even admitted that victory could have been within their grasp. However, Sebastian Vettel showed everyone that he has his mojo back by undercutting Hamilton and Leclerc.

What further jeopardised Mercedes’ strategy was Charles Leclerc backing up the field from the start to close potential pit-stop windows.

“There was a number of cars from the midfield still out and they would have become traffic for Lewis on fresh tyres,” engineering director Andrew Shovlin said in the team debrief.

“So he would have had a few laps in clear air – two, maybe three at most – but then he would have hit that traffic and we weren’t sure we’d be able to get through.”

“It wasn’t like he had a clear track to run on to. But the other question was all about Leclerc and his tyres. He’d been driving very, very slowly, and we thought that he’d still have a lot of life in those tyres.”

“Now, as it happened they fell apart very quickly, almost as soon as he started pushing, and if we’d known that that would have obviously biased us to go for the early stop.”