Lewis Hamilton was incandescent on the radio following the safety car restart caused by Valterri Bottas broken Alfa Romeo. The Mercedes team had failed to pit him for new tyres unlike his team mate George Russell and so Lewis fell from leading the race to P4 as Verstappen, Russell and LeClerc easily passed the British driver within a couple of laps of the restart.

“I can’t believed you guys fucking screwed me, man. I can’t tell you how pissed I am right now,” complained Hamilton as he saw his chance of a podium slipping away.

Yet the way the saga unfolded with Mercedes was more complicated now we have the complete pit radio transcript.

With 16 laps to go Bottas stricken car caused a full safety car and Red Bull immediately responded bringing Max Verstappen in for his third stop to fit fresh soft tyres to go to the end.

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Mercedes meanwhile dithered and Lewis took the lead from Verstappen and Russell was in P2.

Lewis Hamilton appeared to be content to stay on his older tyres but George Russell questioned the team’s decision.

Below on the left is the radio messages between Lewis Hamilton and his engineer Bono. On the right is Russell and his engineers messages.

Lap 56/72

Bonnington	Safety Car, Safety Car, keep the delta positive. So go strat mode one.	Musconi	Safety car. Safety car. Keep that delta positive. You’re staying out.
Hamilton	Has he got Safety Car window?	Russell	Are you sure? You don’t want to throw the soft on?
Bonnington	So Lewis, Verstappen in the pit lane so we’re staying out. Stay out, stay out.	Musconi	You’re staying out.
Bonnington	So it’ll be close with Verstappen on exit. So delta positive.	Russell	What happens if we put the soft on? Where do we fall?
Hamilton	What tyre’s he on?	Musconi	Be on standby. Be on standby.
Bonnington	So Verstappen on the soft tyre, he’s currently behind George.	Russell	If it’s only Leclerc, I’m happy to box.
Hamilton	How many laps?	Musconi	So we are splitting, you’re staying out. Delta. Delta. So stay close to your delta.
Bonnington	We’ve got 15 to go.	Russell	Copy I’m staying out?
Hamilton	Understood.	Musconi	Staying out. Staying out.
		Musconi	Look, Verstappen on exit! Verstappen on exit. Stay tight. Verstappen stopped for the soft. So it is 16 laps to go. So work tyres and brakes. So Leclerc has also stopped, I imagine it will be soft.

Couresty of Racefans.net

At this moment in time it appeared Mercedes had decided first to leave both cars out, with George Russell as a wingman to protect Lewis lead and gain the DRS to help keep Verstappen behind. However Russell is already questioning the team’s strategy and asking for a new set of red tyres realising Verstappen will be too quick at the restart.

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Interestingly, it appears Mercedes had a quick change of mind an considered splitting the strategy but it is Lewis who is going to pit for fresh rubber. George is told to stay out.

However, the team never make the call for Lewis to come in.

Yet the next lap the story changes.

Lap: 57/72
Bonnington	So Safety Car through the pit lane. Safety Car through the pit lane.	Musconi	So Safety Car will come through the pit lane. So you’re following the safety car through the pit lane, you’re not stopping. So stay in the fast lane.
Hamilton	It’s in.	Russell	Why not? I’m losing the tyre. I’m coming in, put the soft on.
Bonnington	So just remember staying in the fast lane. Just stay in the fast lane, going through.	Musconi	Okay. So build a gap. Build a gap. Stop! Stop! Stop! Box, box, box, box. [Unclear] only George is stopping. Stop on your marks.
Hamilton	Why did you stop George?	Musconi	Clear. You’re clear. So we are ahead of Leclerc. Good job there.
Bonnington	I don’t know, Lewis, I’ll let you know.	Musconi	So you can push to catch the Safety Car.
Hamilton	That was a mistake, mate. He had track position. We had a buffer between us, mate. Now we don’t have that.	Russell	Yeah, sorry, yeah, catching the Safety Car.
Bonnington	Copy that Lewis.	Musconi	So you can do lots more with the front brakes.
		Musconi	So it looks like the car has been removed. There’ll be lots of cars that are one lap down. So it’ll be another couple of laps at least. So it’ll be Lewis on nine-lap-old medium, Verstappen, yourself and Leclerc on soft.

So because of his persistence it is George Russell who gets the fresh rubber and Hamilton is left with track position leading the race but on older tyres than the others behind him who all stopped.

 

 

Lewis realised he was in trouble as soon as he saw his team mate pit as he explained.

“When [the Safety Car] came out I just followed the direction, I didn’t think anyone was going to stop.”

“When I pulled past my pit box I saw the soft tyres were out and I saw it was happening into George. In that moment, I was like, hold on a second? So kind of then my hope started to fade a little bit.”

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A grinning George Russell who finished P2 believed the team had made the right call in splitting the strategy, though of course it was he not Lewis who benefitted.

“As a team it was an incredibly difficult decision because had we both pitted, we would have conceded the position to Max,” he said. “Had we both stayed out, we probably both would have lost out to Max as well.

“So the best chance we as a team had of victory was splitting the cars, one to stay ahead of Max, one to stay behind and see what happened. If you could have just got those tyres restarted, it could have been different but it was always going to be very, very challenging for him.”

So here we had flash backs to Abu Dhabi where Mercedes failed to pit Lewis under the safety car while Red Bull gave Verstappen fresh rubber – and the Dutchman blew past Hamilton at the restart to win the race and the 2021 title.

 

 

However, there was another flashback to 2021. In Baku, Verstappen was leading the race when a tyre failure caused him to hit the wall on the main straight. Hamilton inherited the lead under the safety car.

Yet at the restart, Lewis forgot to select the correct mode within the cockpit and it saw him sail of the track with no brakes at turn 1.

In Zandvoort, Mark Hughes of Motorsport Magazine reveals that Lewis had another brain fade moment at the restart again. 

“Hamilton on old tyres was sure to be passed anyway – by the new tyres Verstappen, Russell and LeClerc – but he made it far easier for Verstappen than it otherwise would have been by inadvertently selecting the wrong engine mode for the restart.”

We saw an apologetic Hamilton in the press pen after the race, talking up the positives of the weekend. So clearly behind the scenes he had been informed of his mistake and realised the inappropriate nature of his rant over the team’s strategy decision.

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