Mercedes believes Lewis Hamilton would have risked dropping further down than fifth place had he stayed out on worn Intermediates at Formula 1’s Turkish Grand Prix.
Hamilton held third spot after staying out on the set of green-banded Intermediates on which he started.
Hamilton, who was fifth prior to rivals coming in for fresh tyres, eventually came in after 51 of the 58 laps and re-emerged in fifth spot.
In the immediate aftermath he expressed frustration at the situation, reckoning Mercedes should either have stayed out through to the flag, or come in earlier.
Mercedes had previously requested Hamilton pit – to which he did not oblige – while Pirelli had cautioned the team against running the same set of tyres throughout the entire race.
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon ran the entire race – albeit 57 laps rather than 58 after being lapped – on the same set of tyres, but Mercedes had concerns that such an approach was not feasible.
“If you look at Esteban, he got overtaken by Lance [Stroll] about five or six laps from the end and finished 17 seconds behind them, and that’s how quickly you fall off,” explained Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin.
“That’s what was in our minds. It’s not just ‘can we keep going at this pace’. Esteban lost a further two seconds in that short run to the finish, and that’s where it goes wrong.
“We’ll go through it and we’ll double check, but we’re fairly certain that he would have lost those two places, if not been at risk of more.”
Shovlin affirmed that Hamilton understood the situation once he was aware of the full picture.
“He’s deeply invested in this championship and we wouldn’t really expect anything other than frustration at a P5 where at one point we thought we might be able to hang on,” he said.
“But we’ll go through that. We’ve had a debrief with him and now he understands the reasons. I think it’s just the kind of frustration from him [because] at times in that race he thought he was going to be on the podium, and that didn’t come true.
“I think there’s a bit of disappointment in that but if we look at how we operated, it was sensible and in a championship battle there’s a point where you’ve got to stop taking risks and cut your losses.
“Although those decisions are difficult to do, you’ve got to be strong and you’ve got to take them.”
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