Mercedes says warm-up fears led to medium tyre decision

Mercedes says fears over tyre warm up with the hard compound Pirelli tyres was the reason they opted to go for mediums with both drivers at the Monaco Grand Prix.

After a safety car was deployed to recover debris scattered by Charles Leclerc's Ferrari, Mercedes opted to fit the medium, less durable tyre for both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, something their rivals did not follow.

With Bottas switching to the hards on the next lap due to his close shave in the pitlane with Max Verstappen, it left Hamilton vulnerable from those behind and he was forced to nurse his tyres for 67 laps to the end.

Speaking after the race, Mercedes chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin admitted that Mercedes had made a mistake in their tyre selection.

"The Safety Car was earlier than we would have liked and with hindsight, we should have fitted the hard tyre, but we were concerned about the warm-up on the restart, which was why we took the Medium," he explained.

"That obviously made life difficult for Lewis and we'll review our decision-making and the information that we had at the time.

"We're grateful that Lewis was able to manage it so well to the end as he really had to work for the victory."

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