Sebastian Vettel Praises Lewis Hamilton for Maintaining his Tyres During the Race

During the Mexican Grand Prix 2019, the Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc were on a 2-stop strategy. However, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, opted for a 1-stop strategy. After getting rid of his soft tyres, he slapped on a set of hard tyres to run until the end.

Needless to say, Sebastian Vettel was amazed at seeing Hamilton conserve his tyres till the end. Speaking to the official Formula One website after the race, he said, “If you’re a woman on this planet and you have this guy giving you a massage like he’s treating the tyres, just pure magic!”

Meanwhile, Hamilton was just next to him, in his own separate interview, and the two exchanged a few ribbings. Both Hamilton and Vettel have a lot of respect for each other and get along very well off the circuit.

Vettel actually gave up the ghost when Lewis Hamilton dived into the pits, far earlier than anticipated. “Let him go”, was the simple message, and Scuderia Ferrari had to agree with the German.

Team boss Mattia Binotto said: “We took, as a team, the final decision. If [Vettel] would have come in he would have [fallen] behind because already in the first sector [of his out-lap] Hamilton was fast enough to stay ahead.”

“It would have been too risky, especially for our position being ahead as it was not only for tyre degradation but for tyre wear as well. That tyre wear is something you can look and analyse in the data.”

“Certainly the gamble they did today was the right gamble,” he said. “They took some risks to win and I think the risk went to their merit. That’s the way it is. Maybe we should have taken more risks. Difficult to judge. After the result it’s easy to say ‘yes’.”