Hamilton 'Frustrated' As Mercedes Doesn't Listen To His Strategic Input
F1Tuesday, 24 September 2024 at 22:00
Lewis Hamilton revealed after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix that he wanted to go for a different strategy, but Mercedes colleagues wouldn't listen to him.
The seven-time World Champion had one of his best qualifying sessions of the season during the 18th round at Marina Bay Street Circuit as he qualified in P3 for the Grand Prix on Sunday.
Starting from the front, the seven-time World Champion hoped at least to challenge for the podium and perhaps even for the race victory. However, the final result was far from his expectations.
After starting from P3, Hamilton only slowly lost positions throughout the race to finish in the final P6. He was even overtaken by his teammate George Russell, who started and finished in P4.
What happened? The 39-year-old Mercedes F1 driver was the only one in the top 13 who started the race on soft compound tires, which turned out to be a bad decision.
What annoyed Hamilton after the race was that he wanted very much to start on the medium compound, but his team decided otherwise. He said at an event in Kuala Lumpur for Mercedes's title sponsor, Petronas (which celebrates its 50th anniversary).
Lewis Hamilton, followed by George Russell, into turn 1 in the opening laps of the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix
"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 – and for me, I was a bit perplexed by it."
"In the past, when we've been in that position. Normally, if George has qualified well like he normally does that, and I'm out of the top 10 or something, then we will split the strategies. But when 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 tire, but the team continued to suggest that I start on the soft. And then they took the tire blankets off, and everyone was on mediums."
The seven-time World Champion did his best to keep up with the pace of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris ahead of him, but on lap ten, he was already losing 4.7 seconds on Verstappen and 9.4 seconds on Norris.
Keeping in mind that Hamilton should have had a tire compound advantage at that point, it became clear immediately that he wouldn't be able to fight for victory. After he was called into the pit on lap 17, Lewis Hamilton revealed that he knew the race was over for him. He explained:
"Already, from that moment, I've been frustrated. Then I tried my best to keep up with the guys ahead, they were too fast. And then I just tried to make that tire last as long as I could."
"I had to [pit] on lap 17. I knew from that moment that the race was done for me because the hard tire was going to be a struggle in that heat."
"We've been struggling with the balance of the car all weekend, so we've been changing so many different things. We got a good qualifying, but unfortunately, the race was a bit too much of a struggle for us."
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