F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Argues Mercedes Was Wrong About Suzuka Strategy

The team orders were made to help save Lewis Hamilton's position, but they don't make sense to him.

Lewis Hamilton feels Mercedes' orders to keep Ferrari at bay by not allowing him to pull clear of George Russell was wrong as it made "no sense," despite the former being on fresher tires during the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka. 

In the final stages of the race, Russell maintained a strong fifth position just ahead of Hamilton while an incoming Ferrari of Carlos Sainz was closing in rather quickly.

Despite Hamilton being on fresher tires since he had pitted twice, compared to Russell's one-time stop, there was no push from the team to make way for Hamilton to get past. The lack of urgency, with Ferrari coming in hot frustrated the number 44 driver. 

Eventually, Russell was asked to move aside. But weirdly, after Hamilton overtook and tried to pull away, he was asked by the team to slow down and keep Russell in DRS range. The call was made to prevent Sainz from attacking on the straights. 

In Hamilton's opinion, this DRS strategy was wrong because it stopped him from pulling away and creating a considerable margin with the new rubber. He told Motorsport.com:

"I don't think that was a good idea at all.

"When they suggested it to me, I knew that they had obviously thought of it from the last race, and it made no sense."

To clear the air, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin added that the DRS strategy was made with the sole objective of protecting Hamilton's position from the Ferrari. He clarified:

“It is quite difficult to organise the cars live.

"When we decided to switch them, it was more when we saw how quick Carlos was coming in behind them, and that Lewis in the middle could have been at risk who was old tyres as well.

"Maybe it could have worked out better, but the thing is we were trying to protect against Lewis losing that position as well, as he was the one most likely to finish ahead of Carlos.”

The two Mercedes drivers battled closely in the initial stages of the race but with the team sensing a wheel contact, they changed strategies immediately. Russell made just a single stop as his tire degradation was within the extreme limit, while Hamilton went with a safer two-stop strategy. 

When asked if the DRS strategy was linked to the battle between the two drivers, Shovlin denied saying:

“No, not really. Because in terms of what the team's doing, we're trying to score points against Ferrari, certainly in a race like this. 

"Once we realised that we're not challenging McLaren for a podium, we're looking at what's going on with Ferrari. 

"We were trying to use the two cars effectively to give us those opportunities, and being able to get one of them was useful damage limitation given that they both started ahead of us in the race.”