F1 News
Mercedes admit mistake: 'We should have brought Hamilton in'
- Ludo van Denderen
Mercedes is looking to take revenge in Mexico after a major setback in the United States. The major update to the car seemed to be doing its job, but as the floor of Lewis Hamilton's car failed the inspection afterwards, the Germans were still empty-handed. Hamilton was disqualified and the Brit lost expensive points in the battle for second place in the drivers' championship.
Hamilton was initially allowed to collect his trophy (only to hand it in later to Lando Norris). That was the trophy belonging to second place. In the end, Hamilton fell just short of overtaking Verstappen in the final laps of the Grand Prix. With a different strategy, Hamilton might have been ahead. But during the first stint, Mercedes did not react quick enough to Verstappen's pit stop, James Allison has now admitted.
Allison admits Mercedes' mistake
"We should have pitted Lewis, we should have kept ahead and we would have given ourselves a better chance of the win had we done so. But it’s good to understand where we were coming from, and also understand a bit more of the strategists’ dilemma," Allison said.
When Mercedes discussed the race that Sunday, this was the expectation: "We knew that we had been pretty pacy during the sprint race the day before, but we also knew that Max just had the edge on us. Austin being the sort of track where generally speaking the track sort of tends to deal out the cars in pace order by the time the chequered flag falls at the end of Sunday, so we didn’t actually think we were in exactly the same race as Max. We thought he would find a way of coming through the field."
"We thought that it was most likely a two stop. We thought it would most likely be a race where the tyre degradation was high enough. Admittedly, we also didn't rule out that it would all be a bit more favourable. Eventually we saw the lap times and we thought we could make it a one-stop. The first stint was good. We were able to overtake those two Ferraris, going at a pace that was on par with Max and a little bit quicker than the McLarens. When Max came in for his stop, we knew he would undercut us a few laps later. That wasn't a surprise. But we were in a period of optimism."
"We weren't going to beat Max by doing the same thing as him, because after the sprint race we knew he was quicker than us. But if we could make a one-stop work then we could beat them. That's why we didn't react to Max right away," Allison said.
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