During the 2022 Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix race, one of the highest moments of tension within the Mercedes team in a long time was experienced, and that is that its seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton, questioned the strategy selected by its engineers. , or rather, the null capacity of action of Mercedes.
The wall commented to the Briton that he would be the one who would choose the moment to mount another set of tires, while the driver complained because inside the car “you don’t have all the information and you don’t know where everyone is”, and he didn’t cut himself releasing on the radio the famous Peter Bonnington , his track engineer: “You tell me, man. Don’t leave it to me”.
Hamilton, after getting out of the car, indicated that he felt he “was kind of betting” on such a situation, while his teammate, George Russell, was the one who benefited the most from the pit stops, as he moved up several positions by taking advantage of the car security that came out for the accident between Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly.
The young Englishman decided not to stop with the intention that an incident would allow him to have a window so as not to lose time in the pitlane, as it happened, showing that he is gaining stripes when the team consented to it.
All of this ended with Hamilton trailing Russell late in the race, creating an unnecessary battle on track when they found themselves battling for fifth with Valtteri Bottas midway through the crossover.
As Mercedes usually does after every grand prix, he answered questions from fans through his technical director, Mike Elliot . The engineer was in charge of explaining what happened in this clash on the track in Miami between his drivers and the controversy with Lewis Hamilton’s strategy.
“The virtual safety car came first, and we pitted with George [Russell], exactly the right thing to do,” said the Briton. “We were in a position where there was a big gap between Valtteri [Bottas], closely followed by Lewis [Hamilton], and George a little bit behind, and at that stage of the race Valtteri and Lewis were on the hard tyre. “.
“Lewis was closing in on Valtteri and he was going to get a chance to overtake on the track with a normal racing move, and that’s what we hoped it would be, but that virtual safety car quickly turned into a full safety car, in that moment all the gaps were closed,” Elliot said.
“It compressed the grid again, and we were going to be in a position where George was on a new medium against a used hard tire on Lewis and Valtteri,” the Mercedes technical director continued. “So we were in the thick of it. and the wall”.
In this way, the fight for fifth place at the Miami Grand Prix became a ten-lap race with three drivers on different tires, and where Russell had all the advantage: “The safety car came at the wrong time for Lewis.”
“If he didn’t pit he was always going to have George behind him on a much newer tyre, if he pitted he would lose track position to George, finish behind him. Even if Lewis had a new tyre, the only compounds without The ones we had available were the hard or the soft, and while you might think the soft would have been a good solution, we knew it would overheat very quickly,” he explained.
“We knew because he was right behind George struggling on the track, and that would have put even more heat on the tyres, so it was a rock and a hard place, and there was no right answer,” Elliot said. “And if you were watching TV, you would have seen us asking Lewis that question, what did he think he wanted to do?”
“That was because there was no right or wrong answer and sometimes the drivers have a better view of the car than we as engineers looking at the data. The circumstances that came about meant that Lewis lost because of the safety car.” technical. “Unfortunately Lewis has already been unlucky a couple of times this season, but that’s the way it is and hopefully over the course of the season he will balance out and have some safety car advantages in future races,” said Elliot, who also talked about why their cars swapped positions.
“The simple answer is that, in the eyes of the stewards, George had gained a lasting advantage by overtaking Lewis off the track and therefore we were asked to swap cars again and that is what we did.” finished English.
