The Reason Why Mercedes Ignored “Frustrated” Hamilton’s Gut Feeling

One of the big talking points after the Turkish Grand Prix was the decision by Mercedes to pit Lewis Hamilton late in the race. Hamilton has suggested that he could have finished on the podium without the pit stop but Mercedes have now explained why they insisted on changing Hamilton’s tyres with a handful of laps to go

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Why Mercedes Ignored Hamilton’s Gut Feeling

After the race, Hamilton stated to F1 TV that he should have listened to his gut feeling

“I feel like I should have stayed out. My gut feeling was to stay out and I feel that’s what I should have done. So I’m frustrated in myself for not following my gut. But I work as a team, so I did the best I could with the advice I was getting”

He reiterated his thoughts to Canal+ after learning that Alpine’s Esteban Ocon managed to finish the race without pitting

“Did he really do that? If Ocon did it, then I could do it, for sure”

Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin countered this argument as quoted by Crash

“If you look at Esteban [Ocon], 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. 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”

Team principal Toto Wolff expanded on that while speaking to Sky Sports by suggesting that Lewis would not have made it to the end of the race without pitting

“We saw [Charles] Leclerc dropping off and Lewis dropping off and it was clear that we wouldn’t make it to the end. It would have been better [to stop earlier]”

He summed up the team’s reasoning behind the pit stop

“It was measured and in the car he didn’t see how much he was dropping off in lap time and he didn’t see Leclerc dropping off. If he had stayed out he would have lost to [Pierre] Gasly anyway”


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Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz feels that the Turkish GP “was one of [his] best races, and probably [his] strongest with Ferrari!” 

“That first stint in those tricky conditions was very intense but good fun. I overtook at different parts of the track and using all kinds of lines, so I really enjoyed myself”

“I am starting to have a lot of fun with the car and to understand it better and better, so I look forward to the upcoming races and to keep building momentum”, he summed up

His teammate Charles Leclerc pointed out that he “went long on the first set of Inters and once the rest of the field had stopped for the new set, [he] found [himself] to be quite a bit faster on the used ones”

“But after just a few laps, the other drivers started to clear the graining they were struggling with and found a lot of performance, so we knew we would have to stop too”

“We were a little out of step with the others on my stop that happened late in the race so we never got over the graining phase and couldn’t fight back. It’s a shame that we lost out on a podium finish, but the performance was there which is a positive.”

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly thinks that “to be finishing just 10 seconds from the podium, after a five second penalty, is really good”

“The Turn 1 incident was a bit unfortunate, I was sandwiched between Sergio [Perez] and Fernando [Alonso], we touched a little bit but it was just enough to spin Alonso, so I want to say sorry to him”, he added

“After that though, the pace was really strong, and I’m pleased with the performance of the car this weekend”

His teammate Yuki Tsunoda explained that he “used too much tyre early on, battling with Hamilton, and after that it was really hard to keep up the pace”

“Unfortunately, I then had a spin, and this ruined my whole race. Today was another big learning curve for me, completing so many laps on the intermediate tyres”

“But I’m disappointed as I was really hoping to get points to help the team in the championship”

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez looked back at how “Lewis was closing in really fast and at that time I was struggling quite a lot with my tyres”

“He had good pace and I thought he might get past me but it turned into a good fight and I came out on top. Lewis is a top driver and it was enjoyable racing with him”

“When I was standing on the podium I saw a lot of Mexican flags in the grandstands, we are so far from home here in Turkey so it was lovely to see”, he concluded

[All quotes taken from the official post-race media debrief]


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