Lewis Hamilton has opened up on how he chose to ignore Ferrari’s order to pit under the virtual safety car at Formula 1’s recent Singapore Grand Prix – triggering the strategy mess that derailed his race.
Hamilton had looked on course to take a podium finish at the Marina Bay circuit as he shadowed eventual runner-up and Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc, but Hamilton’s race came undone after he missed the opportunity to pit under VSC, despite a call to do so from his pit wall.
There was confusion post-race about what occurred because problems with F1’s broadcast feed meant Ferrari’s radio communications with Hamilton around this time were never heard.
Ferrari insisted Hamilton had been called in at the same time as Leclerc, and it offered no explanation for why Hamilton didn’t pit. Hamilton himself also did not speak to the media on Sunday night in Singapore after feeling unwell following the race.
Ahead of the United States Grand Prix, Hamilton finally shed light on what happened in Singapore – and admitted he overruled the call from his team, rather than missed the pit entry.
“I was coming towards the pit lane entry, and I didn’t know Charles was coming in because I think just recently he had stopped,” explained Hamilton.
“In a split second decision, I decided to stay out. And as soon as I was alongside the pit lane, I realised it’s probably the wrong decision. But I owned up to it, took responsibility for it, and you move on.”
The other element that hurt Hamilton’s Singapore race was starting on the alternative strategy, with his call to run mediums in the first stint backfiring.
Reflecting on that call, Hamilton said he went down that route because he felt that doing something different was the only way there was a chance of pulling off a victory against the faster Red Bull of Max Verstappen.
“I’m always looking at ways to win,” Hamilton said. “I’m always looking at doing potentially something different, and I wanted to be on a different strategy, not just the same strategy as Charles, where we just follow each other.
“Ultimately, we assumed Max would be potentially quicker, and the strategy kind of showed us finishing second and third, and that’s not enough for me. I wanted to have options and see what could be possible.
“If the medium tyre could last longer, maybe we could go deeper into the race. But it wasn’t the case when I got going, and it didn’t feel great in the first stint.
“Then obviously coming out behind Charles and losing a lot of time ultimately with him on a slower tyre, which I was on at the beginning, I had the pace on the soft was a bit of a similar scenario to maybe Zandvoort.”
Hamilton eventually finished sixth, after his tyres fell off in the closing stages and allowed rivals to overtake him.
But despite the deep disappointment of the race, and the fact “the next couple of days didn’t feel great”, Hamilton says that things have been run through with Ferrari to ensure that similar mistakes are not made in the future.
He feels part of the reason he has been so successful in the past is that he has been willing to try different things.
“We’ve had good conversations in the background of how we can do better together, and how we can collaborate better,” he said.
“But I think that nothing’s changed in terms of how well we work together in the background.
“I truly believe my job is rather than to follow suit always, is to continuously challenge the team and myself including, and just constantly challenging the norms, and that’s ultimately how I’ve got to where I am. I will not shy away from that.
“Sometimes it doesn’t go well, and that was one of those. But you live to fight another day, and we win and we lose as a team. So we carry the weight and the costs together.
“It definitely hurts when I lose points for the team. It’s not something I do very often, but I’ll double the efforts to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
