Hamilton strategy “battle” puts Mercedes in spotlight

Ever since Lewis Hamilton announced his shock switch to Ferrari for next year at the start of the current Formula 1 season, conspiracy has swirled over his treatment at Mercedes.

What the partnership has achieved together can only spoken of in the same manner as Michael Schumacher’s stint with the Scuderia at the start of the century, yet there have been signs of disharmony across the current season.

With Hamilton’s qualifying form dipping at multiple rounds over the year – especially after strong practice pace – there have been suggestions from his supporters on social media that favour was now focused on team-mate George Russell.

A strategy call that resulted in Russell take the win in Belgium, before being thrown out for an underweight car, left Hamilton reeling.

There was even an email in circulation earlier this year claiming to be from a Mercedes employee suggesting sabotage, threatening key members of the team and forcing a police investigation.

While there is no evidence of sabotage, nor claim from Hamilton himself, the way the world now works with Twitter (or X), Instagram and Facebook the dominant force for news and opinion means perception is often more powerful than truth.

Of course, Hamilton’s own admission that he was “not good” in qualifying when taking sixth on the grid for the Italian Grand Prix eliminates doubt.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

But murmours of such unfair treatment returned after he was put onto the soft tyre at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix having qualified third – only one of two drivers to start on that compound.

It was to the detriment of his race and he would eventually finish just sixth, behind Russell.

Speaking at team sponsor Petronas’ headquarters in Kuala Lumpur in the week after the event – in a video filmed by an audience member and circulated on social media – Hamilton and Russell reacted to the strategy call.

Here’s how the chat went:

LH: “It wasn’t fun. We sat in our meeting in the morning before the race – actually, the night before they already mentioned they would like to split the cars. For me, I was a bit perplexed by it because, in the past, when we have been in that position… normally, if George has qualified well like he normally does and I’m out of the top 10, then we will split the strategies. But, when we were so close, it didn’t make sense to me. But I battled as hard as I could to fight for the medium tyre, but the team continued to suggest that I start on the soft. When they took the tyre blankets off and everyone was on mediums…”

GR: “When I saw that, I was thinking ‘Lewis won’t be happy’.

LH: “I was so angry. Already from that moment, I was frustrated and then I tried my best to keep up with the guys ahead. They were too fast and I tried to make the tyre last as long as they could. I knew [when I stopped] that the race was done for me because the hard tyre was going to be a struggle in that heat.”

It must be pointed out that Hamilton laughed his way through his answer, showing little animosity over the situation, even if the choice of words suggests otherwise.

Team principal Toto Wolff had explained the team had “read the race wrong” when selecting the strategy but providing more insight, technical director James Allison said: “I’ll just start off by saying we shouldn’t have started on the softs. That was a mistake. If we could turn back time, we would do what those around us did and select the mediums.

“The reasoning was that the soft tyre very often allows you to get away from the start abruptly and allows you a good chance of jumping a place or two in the opening laps of the race. We had no real expectation before the race that we were going to suffer the sort of difficulties that we then experienced on the soft rubber.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, in the garage

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“So, we imagined we would get the upside of the soft rubber, of getting a place or two. We didn’t, because that just isn’t the way the starts played out and then we hoped that the downside of the soft being a bit more fragile wouldn’t really play out particularly badly because, if you look back over the years in Singapore, on the whole, the pace starts very, very easy at a Singapore race and the drivers then build up the pace over many, many laps, leaving a soft tyre perfectly OK to run relatively deep into the pit window.

“So, we didn’t get the places at the start, the pace started building up from around about lap five and that left Lewis with a car that was not particularly happy anyway, suffering from quite poor tyre degradation and needing to come in early as a consequence and really ruined his race for him. Yeah, so just a clear mistake.”

Mercedes, like any team, determines its strategies through the use of historical race data and the information picked up across the active weekend. Regardless of Hamilton’s thoughts, there is no doubt the team selected the compound it felt was the best to help maximise its result at the end of 62 laps.

To suggest anything otherwise is grossly unfair and insulting to a professional team that has had all the success a group could wish for.

But that’s not to say the relationship between team and driver is not damaged. Hamilton was the on-track laboratory for Mercedes as it struggled at the dawn of the current technical regulations and in the space of two years has gone from wanting to be a Silver Arrow for life, emulating Sir Stirling Moss, to jumping ship for Ferrari.

In years gone by, the team may have paid more attention to his pleas in the pre-race briefings rather than allowing a “battle” to escalate.

Wolff insisted this year that his personal relationship with Hamilton hasn’t suffered, yet he was left “shocked and hurt” by the seven-time champion’s Ferrari switch.

The question is whether harmony will remain between what was once the powerhouse of F1 until the split comes at the end of the year.