Trust between Hamilton and the Ferrari pitwall in Singapore appeared to have vanished
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The last two weekends in Malaysia and Singapore have been a fascinating pair of races to look at the dynamic between Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari. The team have done a pretty good job at developing a car that has largely been the second fastest across the season so far. Both drivers have won races and have been podium contenders on several occasions yet there’s no doubt that they leave Singapore as a somewhat fractured camp.
I was watching the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia from home and even with the basic information I had of watching the onboard feed and a few bits of team radio, I could tell on the formation lap that the slick tyres were the wrong choice. Lewis nearly went off on that formation lap, Pierre Gasly did go off, and I was convinced that several cars would be switching to the intermediate tyres. As it turned out, of the lead cars only Oscar Piastri switched at the end of the formation lap!
A podium position for Lewis Hamilton at Sepang was the 208th of his career
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After 9 laps in Malaysia Lewis was 83 seconds of the lead and it is a miracle that he ended up back on the podium. To be clear however this was not some strategic master stroke that got them back there, but in fact the benefit of the safety car periods and an incredible stint on the soft tyres by Lewis. As he reflected afterwards this was a bittersweet podium because if he had started on the correct tyres I think he could have fought with Max for the victory.
“Being out on track is actually an isolated place to be for a driver”
When we arrived in Singapore on the Thursday Lewis Hamilton was quite outspoken about the fact that didn’t think it was fair for people to be criticising Ferrari for their strategic decisions more than other teams. He pointed out that Mclaren also opted to go for slick tyres – although the fact remains that at least at McLaren they hedged their bets by pitting Oscar at the end of the formation lap and he made up a load of places once the race started. What was somewhat bemusing was that Lewis then went on to explain that he himself wanted to have the intermediate tyres but was talked out of it by three people from the team which somewhat contradicted is point earlier of wondering why people criticise Ferrari!
The whole race in Singapore was a very confusing strategy from Lewis and Ferrari. Out of the top 7 finishers, he was the only one who started on the medium compound tyres and yet was the first to pit because they felt the Medium tyre was too slow. By pitting early it seemed to indicate that they were going to run an aggressive two stop strategy which would have been fine. Bizarrely when Lewis came out on the soft tyres he then got stuck behind Charles and was clearly frustrated to be losing time there. It seemed to me that Ferrari was not looking at the overall race time because if they hadm they would have swapped the cars straight away and allowed Lewis to take advantage of his superior pace.
Mark Hughes analyses how Max Verstappen beat Charles Leclerc to victory in Singapore, and how Lewis Hamilton’s strategic gamble turned a promising Ferrari result into a costly disappointment
Later on when the virtual safety car was deployed both the Ferrari drivers were called into the pits and that should have guaranteed them a second and third place finish. Instead Lewis, who I suspect was still frustrated at the earlier situation where he was stuck behind Charles, took the decision into his own hands and did not pit. We don’t have the full radio communication between the pit wall and Lewis available publicly and therefore we don’t know whether they explained to him that his tyres would be 21 laps old whereas the other cars around him would have fresh tyres to attack even if he got track position ahead of them.
This is where the team and driver need to have complete trust and faith in each other, as well as a clear and concise communication plan. The biggest loss on that Sunday was not the fact that Lewis dropped from 3rd to 6th position but actually that he seemed to indicate that he does not trust the calls coming from the pit wall. If I reflect on Lewis’s time at Mercedes or the relationship that Max has with his race engineer ‘GP’ Lampiese, the communication between the driver and the pit wall always kept in mind what the big picture of the race was.
Being out on track in a race is actually quite a isolated place to be for a Grand Prix driver as you have quite a myopic view of the race with just the cars immediately around you for reference. Ferrari now need to rebuild the trust to show Lewis that he is not alone.
