© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
Mercedes’ Technical Director James Allison explains why Lewis Hamilton started the Singapore Grand Prix on Soft tyres, and admits it was “a clear mistake”.
Lewis Hamilton started the Singapore Grand Prix from P3, on Soft tyres. This meant that he had to pit a lot earlier than his rivals, and ultimately this decision cost him several places, as he finished the race in P6.
Mercedes’ Technical Director James Allison explains the thinking behind the decision and admits it was ultimately a mistake.
“If we could turn back time, we would do what those around us did and select the mediums,” Allison said.
“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 in 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.
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“So, we imagined we would get the upside of the soft rubber, of getting a place or two. We didn’t, because that just isn’t the way the starts played out.
“And then we hoped that the downside of the soft being a bit more fragile wouldn’t really play out particularly badly because on the whole, if you look back over the years in Singapore, on the whole the pace starts very, very easy at a Singapore race and the drivers then build up the pace over many, many laps, leaving a soft tyre perfectly okay to run relatively deep into the pit window.
“We didn’t get the places at the start, the pace started building up from around about lap five and that left Lewis with a car that was not particularly happy anyway, suffering from quite poor tyre degradation and needing to come in early as a consequence and really ruined his race for him.
“Yeah, so just a clear mistake.”
Allison adds the strategy could have worked had there been a Safety Car at some point later in the race, because he could have had a second stop to switch to fresh Medium tyres.
“It was considered, it was certainly there as a great weapon. Had there been a safety car, an opportune moment in the race, that would have been one of the upsides of that strategy, but once we embarked on the soft-hard strategy, we were considering changing to a two-stop for Lewis at various points during the race.
“Although that would have put him out on fresher rubber, and he would have been swift on that fresher rubber, all our calculations suggested that he would not actually have gained back the pit-stop loss.
“So it was there in the hutch, we could have used it and it would have been good at a safety car, but in a normal, uninterrupted race, which for the first time in forever we got in Singapore, that tyre was not a thing that would have helped Lewis’ weekend,” the Briton concluded.
