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Lewis Hamilton believes that, like his teammate, he could have managed to complete the Belgian Grand Prix with just one pit stop.
While the seven-time world champion said it was “disappointing” that his teammate’s disqualification meant Mercedes lost out on a 1-2, one couldn’t help but feel that deep down the Briton was allowing himself a wry smile.
Interviewed at race end he was clearly miffed at the team’s decision to split strategies, stopping him twice even though he insisted that his tyres were good.
Asked if he thought a one-stop was possible, he said: “I think if you listen, you could have heard what I said to the team most of the time. I think the tyres were pretty good. I still had plenty of tyres and I was going quicker. I didn’t want to stop.”
Sunday’s performance was 180 degrees compared to Friday when the German team had clearly struggled.
“It was literally night and day different today,” said Hamilton. “On Friday, it was pretty disastrous for both of us, and really struggling with balance. And then today, the car came alive and I was really surprised to firstly get into the lead and then be pulled away from everyone.
“As I said, it felt fully under control. I’ve not had that for three years. And so that’s why it was also a bit of a strange way to finish it. But it is great to go into the summer break with a 1-2. The team really deserved it and did such an amazing job.”
The Silver Arrows now has three wins from the last four races.
“The car is a bit more comfortable,” he said. “The balance through low to medium to high are all much more in line with what we had targeted. Yeah, that’s about it.”
In fact, Mercedes was totally caught out by Russell, believing that whether he stopped once or twice he was still unlikely to finish higher than fifth.
“We have these race planners, which tell us where the cars are going to come out at the end,” explained Toto Wolff, “and at some stage we saw we had to cover Piastri and Leclerc with Lewis.
Insisting that putting Hamilton on a two-stopper was “absolutely clear cut”, Wolff admitted that “nobody expected the hard to last”, and consequently the team “went longer and longer and then the planners said P5 for George in either case, one stop or two stops”.
“So we said, ‘Let’s take the gamble.’ Both drivers at that stage felt happy with the tyres, but with Lewis we had to do it to cover the other cars. So we extended the stint and the tyre remained absolutely fine. It was pretty flat in terms of performance until the end.”
As witnessed, Russell maintained a strong pace until the end, holding off his teammate and posting his own personal best lap time on the last lap.
However, all the time his tyres were wearing away and since a set of tyres (minus rims) can lose 3kg over a long stint that decision looks to have ultimately backfired for Russell.
“The loss of rubber from the one stop was a contributing factor,” admitted Andrew Shovlin, “and we’ll work to understand how it happened. We won’t be making any excuses, though. It is clearly not good enough and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Check out our Sunday gallery from Spa here.
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