Lewis Hamilton has admitted he switched to the correct engine mode too late before the safety car restarted at the Dutch Grand Prix. At this point, the Mercedes driver was well on the way to contesting the victory at Zandvoort for Max Verstappen, but then only finished fourth.
Red Bull had decided to bring Verstappen into the pits during the safety car phase and switch to soft tires. Hamilton continued on used medium tires and took the lead. Mercedes apparently felt it was worth the risk to fight for a possible win.
In the end, however, Hamilton was unable to stop Verstappen: the world champion overtook the Brit at the restart, who lost the lead before the first corner.
Although Red Bull is known to have an advantage over Mercedes on the straights, the magnitude of the speed difference between the two led some to believe there might have been an engine problem at the restart.
Hamilton: Too late in the right engine mode
But Hamilton insists there was no problem, instead admitting to initially accelerating in the wrong engine mode – which would have cost him momentum compared to Verstappen. “I was late,” said the Brit. “I was then in race mode on the straight, but we were just so fast.”
The radio conversation between Hamilton and his engineer Peter Bonnington at this point shows that the Mercedes driver was reminded to put his engine in racing mode (“Strat Mode Five”) before the end of the safety car period.
As Hamilton accelerated into the final corner to restart, Bonnington again reminded him of the mode over the radio. Because Hamilton was missing the 160 hp that the MGU-K makes available until he switched, initially for about a second.
Ultimately, however, the delay did little to change Hamilton’s prospects of stopping Verstappen. The Red Bull’s top speed would have been too high to keep him behind for more than a few laps anyway. This was also confirmed by Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff after the race.
“We lack the speed on the straights,” he addresses the top speed problem. “And until we fix that, it’s going to be very difficult to contend with them on the straight, especially at a track where overtaking is difficult.”
No soft tires and no podium for Hamilton
“You can never say never. But the probability is less than 50 percent,” estimates Wolff. Now Hamilton was also on the road with used media. Why didn’t he switch to the soft tires under the safety car like Verstappen?
“I don’t know. We didn’t have enough time to talk about it. Earlier in the day we talked about taking a risk and just making one stop. There was no discussion about whether there was a safety with 20 or 15 laps to go -Car would come. That wasn’t part of the discussion.”
“When that came, I followed what I thought,” Hamilton continues. “I didn’t think anyone would stop. But when I passed my pits, I saw that George had gotten the soft tires. That’s when my hope started to fade.”
In fact, Hamilton became easy prey for Verstappen, teammate George Russell and also Ferrari competitor Charles Leclerc. On the radio, he vented his anger at not having been switched to softs as well. But Mercedes didn’t want to give up Hamilton’s track position and let him drive through.
After the race, however, the Brit was forgiving again: “We have the right team 100 percent. We have a group of young, very determined people, some of whom have been here as long as I have and a lot longer in the team.”
“Today it wasn’t an easy decision. Of course we can always look back on certain scenarios and say that we could or would have made a different decision, but that’s not life. I was hoping to be on the podium, first or second to become, but we keep going.”