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Hamilton sees Red Bull win for the first time: "Verstappen did a fantastic job"
- GPblog.com
Lewis Hamilton has admitted that he actually wanted to try to finish last Sunday's British GP with a one-stopper. However, some tenths of a lap before the end of the race, the Mercedes driver found out that Max Verstappen was simply too fast with Red Bull Racing. Therefore no risks were taken.
"I was trying to go for a one-stop at the end but there was a lot of vibration with the tyres that we had and I didn’t know if the tyre was going to last if I’m being honest", Hamilton said at the press conference after the Grand Prix at Silverstone. The risk of losing a lot of World Championship points was too big according to the six-time world champion. "Not just with the rubber but I just a rear tyre blow-out through a corner was too big a risk to take."
Choice Mercedes is understood
With twelve laps to go, Hamilton had a nine-second lead on Verstappen. Yet the 35-year old Brit thinks his team made the right choice. "I think it was a good decision by the team. I was trying to keep going but there were a lot of laps to go and Max, I think at the end, was doing 28s, 29s and I couldn’t do that on the tyre old tyres, so congratulations to him, he did a fantastic job", he reacted sporty.
Verstappen gave himself a big advantage at the start of the GP by being able to start on the hard tyres. Did Mercedes drop stitches there in Q2? "It’s all hearsay. Hindsight’s always a good thing but I really don’t know. Maybe we wouldn’t have fallen back towards Max but even on the Hard tyre we had blistering. A lot of blistering. So even with a lot of management."
Hamilton would like to see more pit stops
Normally the teams in Formula 1 always use one-stops. Pirelli's rubber usually lasts a long time, but Hamilton hopes that that will change in time. "I think, has made the race even more exciting as we set about a two stop. Part of me doesn’t want to propose that we go with softer tyres moving forwards because maybe we’ll be in this position again, but ultimately, one-stop sucks. We should never be doing one-stops, I think in this sport. It’s never been good watching as a fan", concludes Hamilton.