In the final stretch of the US Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen had different tires – Hard and Medium respectively. In the battle for the lead, Max passed Lewis on lap 50 of 56, which raised doubts about the correctness of Mercedes’ tire strategy.
The team’s chief strategist James Vowles explained that even if Lewis had had Medium tires during the final stint, he still wouldn’t have beaten Max Verstappen.
“The decision on which tires to use in the race was made a week before the race,” explains James Vowles. – Based on last year’s experience, we chose between Medium and Hard and found the composition Hard more suitable. Plus, we thought Soft was too soft to use in the race – and it showed in practice.
I don’t think using Hard in the final stretch cost Lewis the win. In the first segment of the race, both Lewis and Max used Medium – in such conditions Max played us for five seconds. In addition, Medium’s composition began to deteriorate rapidly towards the end of the segment.
Our car just didn’t have enough speed to fight Max. I agree that hard tires are less preferred at the start of a stint, but they allow you to cover more distance compared to Medium without losing efficiency.
The truth is that we got a chance to fight for the win thanks to some circumstances that brought us to the first positions. The tire choice for the last stretch did not matter, however.
Source: F1 News
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