Mercedes has asserted that Lewis Hamilton would’ve overtaken Max Verstappen for the lead of the Spanish Grand Prix without making a second pit stop.
After Verstappen made his first pit stop last Sunday, Hamilton stayed out for a handful of laps, meaning his tyres were fresher than Verstappen’s when he emerged from the pit lane.
Hamilton caught up to the Red Bull driver but didn’t overtake him, with Mercedes then switching to a two-stop strategy which saw Hamilton reel Verstappen in and triumph in Barcelona.
Speaking in Mercedes’ post-weekend debrief, the team’s Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin doesn’t think the second pit stop was absolutely necessary in order to make the overtake stick.
“He [Lewis] actually said to us after the race, ‘I was almost about to do it and perhaps you should have left me out, I would have done it on track’ and that looked like it was quite possible,” Shovlin said.
“I think with the fresher tyres that were on Lewis’ car it would have probably happened at some point because Max would have started to get pretty significant degradation towards the end of the race.”
However, Shovlin highlighted that if Hamilton made the overtake through a one-stop strategy, Verstappen then could’ve pitted for fresh tyres and hunt Hamilton down.
“If we had done that you then have the disadvantage almost of being the race leader and Max could have done to Lewis what we did to him,” Shovlin said.
“So, he could have converted to a two stop as soon as Lewis had overtaken him, and this might have happened around the point that we decided to pull the trigger on the extra stop anyway.
“So, in some ways it was actually better to not do that overtake on track, use the fact that for Lewis he was in P2 and the worst case scenario of the extra stop was that he would finish in P2.
“For us it was worth a gamble but there was less chance that Max as the race leader was going to make that move for the extra stop.”
Red Bull’s strategists have repeatedly let Max down over the last few seasons, by failing to assess the degradation which tyres are suffering, thereby leaving him in vulnerable situations against whoever he happens to be racing at the time. The cases where it looks worst are when Mercedes are the opponent, simply because that is the fastest car, so the disadvantage will be most pronounced. When he was being closed down and clearly under threat in Spain, several other teams had already made a second stop with at least one of their drivers, therefore it was obvious that the leaders would need to do so also. They should have pulled him in first to get an undercut from the front, as it were, ensuring that he got in a quick outlap while Hamilton was on the old tyres and maintain track position, in the knowledge that if Hamilton didn’t stop he’d be running slow on ragged tyres by the end of the race. Red Bull have to get this sorted out, because the car is now close enough that Max can make the difference often enough to produce the wins he needs to take the title, if he is provided the support by those on the pitwall and at the factory who have the information which he doesn’t have in the car.