Ferrari's strategy decisions and communication with their drivers came under fresh scrutiny at the Singapore Grand Prix after Lewis Hamilton overrode a call to pit. Hamilton finished finish sixth instead of a likely third in last Sunday's race after not heeding a call from the team's pit wall to stop under a lap-39 Virtual Safety Car. On team radio after the race following his struggle on worn tyres, Hamilton apologised for "my call" around the strategy, a position he subsequently reiterated on social media when he admitted he had learned a "painful lesson" by choosing "a strategy that ultimately didn't deliver".
It was the second weekend in a row that post-race debate around Ferrari had centred on race strategy. At the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia the week before, Ferrari's drivers slipped to the back of the field in the twice-delayed race's early stages after the team had been among those to make the mistake of starting on slick tyres when the track was too wet. Hamilton later said the process around that call, which he had questioned at the time, had prompted a "huge discussion" after the race.
Hamilton eventually fought back to an impressive third place at Sepang after deciding to stay on the slicks longer than team-mate Charles Leclerc, a gamble aided by the timely appearance of the Safety Car as the track dried. So after further issues in Singapore, this time with Hamilton overriding Ferrari's request to pit under the VSC, the latest edition of the The F1 Show podcast included analysis on the situation at the Scuderia... Sky Sports F1's Bernie Collins, a former head of race strategy at Aston Martin, was first asked whether Singapore was evidence that the trust between Hamilton and the Ferrari pit wall had broken down.
"Lewis started on the medium tyre, which is one of the things he actually came out and said he thought in hindsight was the wrong decision, but was his decision," said Collins. "He decided to go that way strategically at the beginning of the race. "He stops earlier than everybody else so instantly when we're watching at home, we're thinking, 'okay, he's probably on a two-stop here' because he's the first of any of the cars really to stop.
"He puts on that soft tyre. Then they get this perfect opportunity with the virtual safety car to stop again, take another set of soft tyres. You could see the soft was a better tyre and you could see that it was going to be much faster to put a new set on.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player "On the coverage at home, we didn't hear any call from Ferrari to box Lewis, but we don't hear a lot of the calls that happen. Fred [Vasseur] obviously came out afterwards and said, yes, they did call him, Lewis missed the entry or ignored the call, whichever way you want to think about it. "But someone of Lewis's stature doesn't forget to do a pit stop.
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