Lewis Hamilton has conceded that Ferrari had a better tyre strategy for Formula 1’s Russian Grand Prix, in spite of Mercedes picking up a 1-2 finish.
Ferrari and Mercedes diverged on their strategy options, with the former using Softs for the opening spell of the race and the latter opting to utilise the Medium tyres.
Hamilton went on to triumph as he profited from the Virtual Safety Car period caused by Sebastian Vettel’s stoppage to make a pit stop, emerging ahead of Charles Leclerc.
But he feels Mercedes still took the wrong avenue initially when deciding its race strategy.
“I don’t think I was particularly confident but we knew that we were obviously on the different tyre to put ourselves on a slightly different strategy in that respect,” he said.
“I hoped that would give us an opportunity to dice and fight with them at some stage through the race but before the race we sat down and said our estimations, if the Soft tyre will last or not, either we will be correct or they will be correct.
“I think ultimately they were right because the Soft tyre was much stronger than we anticipated.
“Obviously there was that difference between the compounds so keeping up with the Softs with their consistency and speed was so hard so I wasn’t expecting that.”
Hamilton nonetheless praised team-mate Valtteri Bottas, and the entire Mercedes crew, for extracting the maximum from the weekend.
“Valtteri did an exceptional job because it is not easy keeping the Ferraris behind and Charles had been driving so well so ultimately it is an incredible day for the team considering the challenges that we’ve had,” he said.
“I think this weekend we knew that we had to pull more out of this car and that there was more potential but we didn’t know where it was so we pulled ourselves a little bit closer to the Ferraris this weekend and it was just enough to get ahead of them.”
