Lewis Hamilton said he fought to turn Mercedes away from splitting the strategies in Singapore, which saw him starting on soft tyres, a decision which left him “perplexed”.
While qualifying has been an area of concern for Hamilton in F1 2024, he once more delivered over one lap at the Marina Bay Circuit to qualify P3, as Mercedes team-mate George Russell joined him on the front row.
Lewis Hamilton opens up on Mercedes Singapore GP strategy clash
However, while the medium tyre was the compound of choice for most drivers at the start, Russell included, Mercedes insisted on the soft tyres for Hamilton, who claimed to have been advocating strongly for the mediums.
“We sat in our meeting in the morning of the race, actually the night before they already mentioned that they would like to split the cars,” said Hamilton as he spoke alongside Russell at an event for Mercedes’ partner Petronas.
“And for me, I was a bit perplexed by it. Because in the past, when we’ve ever been in that position… Normally if George has qualified well like he normally does and I’m out of the top 10 or something, then we’ll split the strategies, but we were so close. It didn’t make sense to me.
“So I battled as hard as I could to fight to go on the medium tyre, but the team continued to suggest that I started on the soft.
“And then when they took the tyre blankets off, everyone was on mediums…”
Both Mercedes drivers attempted to keep proceedings light-hearted, Russell sparking laughter as he chimed in with: “When I saw that, I was thinking, ‘Lewis won’t be happy…'”
Hamilton pitted on Lap 17 to swap the soft tyres for hards, Russell coming out ahead of Hamilton when he later pitted and in prime position for a podium position from there, which ultimately went to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. Hamilton was forced to settle for P6.
“I was so angry,” Hamilton continued, “so already from that moment I’m frustrated.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell head-to-head in F1 2024
“And then I tried my best to keep up with the guys ahead. They were too fast. And then I trust tried to make that tyre last as long as could and I had to stop on Lap 17 and I knew from that moment, then the race was done for me, because the hard tyre was going to be a struggle in that heat.
“And we’d been struggling with the balance of the car all weekend, so we were changing so many different things. We got a good qualifying, but unfortunately, the race was too much of a struggle for us.”
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