Picture Credit: Twitter/@F1
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen had a brilliant end to his French Grand Prix as he overtook Lewis Hamilton in the second last lap to register a famous win at the Paul Ricard circuit. It was their two-stop pit stop strategy which proved to be effective and left Mercedes clueless so much so that now Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton has said that it was pointless to defend against Verstappen by then.
Hamilton’s comments come after the defeat at the Paul Ricard where traditionally Mercedes have had a great record. But this time around, they couldn’t maintain that reputation.
Didn’t want to make my tyres any worse: Hamilton
“Firstly, there’s marbles on the inside so I didn’t want to make my tyres any worse than they already were,” Hamilton told RacingNews365.
“He [Verstappen] had the DRS open, and if he didn’t pass me there, he would have overtaken me on the other straight afterwards, so it made zero difference,” he added.
“I just had no front end, so he would have gone the other way so it was pointless to defend any harder. You saw, what happened to Valtteri and he just ended up going straight on so no point messing up the tyres anymore,” he further said.
Much like his teammate Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton believes that the two-stop pit stop strategy could have been the best way to beat Verstappen. He also expressed his disappointment with the speed after the race.
However, Mercedes CEO, Toto Wolff still believes that the one-pit stop strategy was a gamble worth taking but by the time they could react, Red Bull had already gained advantage.