Vowles: we should have started on soft tires

In Mexico City, Lewis Hamilton took 2nd place and a week earlier he finished in the same position in Austin, indicating Mercedes’ unconditional progress. In qualifying he showed the third result and George Russell generally started from the front row, but the race was less successful for him than for his partner.

At the same time, it was suggested that the W13 car on the Mexican track was capable of a fairly high pace, and in theory Hamilton could claim victory if it were not for the tactics chosen by the team. In that regard, Red Bull Racing’s schedule proved more effective: Max Verstappen, who won the race, started on soft tires, then switched to Medium tires on lap 25 and was able to drive the rest of the distance on them.

After the finish of the Mexican Grand Prix, Mercedes chief strategist James Vowles joined the F1 Nation podcast and was asked why they weren’t following.

“We started on yellow tires, Medium, not red, not Soft, and that’s why,” explained Vowles. “We knew we didn’t have the fastest car, but we assumed the one-stop tactics would give us the best chance of winning. And we firmly believed that the Soft-Medium scheme can only be implemented under the most successful conditions.

In any case, it would be too risky an option – mainly through degradation, not wear and tear. At the same time, the Medium-Hard arrangement was guaranteed to be limited to one pit stop. In addition, at the start of the race we saw that the Soft tires started to lose efficiency on lap 16, although I honestly assumed the degradation of the soft rubber would be more intense.

In addition, the medium starting schedule did not preclude a switch to a two-stop option and we were also able to fit soft tires in the later phase of the race, as Daniel Ricciardo did. Overall we had some options.

At the same time, we understood that we would lose something at the beginning, about a few meters, but there was hope that thanks to the slipstream we could regain. We also took into account the psychological factor: if we could seriously put pressure on the Red Bull drivers, we would try because people don’t like it.

But you shouldn’t count on opponents’ mistakes, so the main consideration in choosing tactics was realizing that we have a slower car, so we have to act differently, in our own way. If we had started on soft tires we probably would have finished second. If you start on Medium, there may be some opportunities, but that’s not a fact. However, I probably should have tried to start the race on Soft – nevertheless I’m not that mad at the results of the race.

As for the chances of winning, we would have only got them in one case: if we had gotten in front of the Red Bull car in the 1st corner, there were no other options. On the Mexican track, it’s important to avoid overheating the brakes, so chasing the opponent close for many laps just wouldn’t work…”