Mercedes smarter about tires? ''This was a 'checkmate' move''

Masterstroke by Mercedes

This season all teams have exactly the same number of sets of soft, medium and hard tyres prior to a race weekend. How the teams use these sets is entirely up to them, and this provides a strategic element. This is how Mercedes managed to have an advantage over Red Bull Racing on Sunday.

All the drivers in the top ten had a fresh hard tyre leftover that everyone thought was too slow for the race and a set of new medium tyres. However, Mercedes was the only team to also have a used set of mediums in reserve, which came in handy for the team in the race. ''These would be deployed for the 'Checkmate' move later in the race,'' said Brundle in his column for Sky Sports.

Hamilton wins again

''This was the checkmate move because it was too late for Red Bull to react, and as Max's engineer described it on the radio 'a Budapest 2019' where Hamilton steamed back past Verstappen on much better tyres to take victory, as indeed he would do again for his fifth consecutive victory here.''

''Red Bull might have seen that coming and pitted Max first ambitiously risking that his new soft tyre could last and hoping he could hang on at the front somehow as Hamilton did on ailing tyres in Bahrain, '' Brundle concludes.